USER GUIDE

How to use
GovLens.

Five-minute walkthrough. No prior knowledge. Works on any .gov.in portal.

STEP 1

Install the extension

The extension isn't on the Chrome Web Store yet. Install it manually — takes 60 seconds.

Download or clone the repo: git clone https://github.com/ankursinha/GovLens.git
Open chrome://extensions in Chrome.
Toggle Developer mode on (top right).
Click Load unpacked and pick the govlens-extension folder.
Pin the GL icon to your toolbar so it's always one click away.

STEP 2

Open the side panel

Visit any .gov.in or .nic.in page. A green ✓ badge appears on the GL icon — that means the extension recognised the site. Click the icon. The side panel opens on the right.

💡

Three engines, tried in order — no setup for 99% of users:

On-device AI — free, private, runs on your machine (Chrome 138+).
Google Translate — free, internet-based, no key needed.
Anthropic Cloud — premium, your API key, highest quality.

The status strip shows which engine answered the last call.

STEP 3

Translate any page

🌐 TRANSLATE 🗺 NAVIGATE 🔍 SEARCH

PAGE LANGUAGE

HINDI →

The Translate tab is open by default.
The detected page language shows on the left.
Pick your target language from the dropdown — 22+ Indian + international options, or type your own.
Click TRANSLATE PAGE. The page text gets replaced in-place; layout stays intact.
Click RESTORE ORIGINAL any time to revert.
TRANSLATE SELECTION ONLY — highlight text on the page, then click this for a quick popover translation.

🧠

Quick tools, same tab:

📝 SUMMARISE PAGE — three-section summary: what it's for, key actions, documents needed.
💡 EXPLAIN IN PLAIN ENGLISH — rewrites the page text under 250 words, no jargon.

STEP 4

See the page map

Switch to the 🗺 NAVIGATE tab. The whole page is laid out in one pane.

📍 Breadcrumbs

Where you are in the site hierarchy.

📑 Sections

All H1–H4 headings, in order. Click → scroll there + flash highlight.

📋 Forms

Every form on the page with field count and submit URL. Click → jump to it.

📄 Documents

All PDFs, DOCs, XLSs, ZIPs. One click to open.

🔗 Nav menus

Every site nav block, expandable to see all child links.

The top of the tab also shows: sections, forms, docs, links — at-a-glance counts.

STEP 5

Cross-language search with jump-and-highlight

🌐 TRANSLATE 🗺 NAVIGATE 🔍 SEARCH

CROSS-LANGUAGE SEARCH

#1 Section 80C deductions

…allowable deduction under section 80C up to ₹1.5 lakh per year…

▶ JUMP TO MATCH

Type your query in any language. English query, Hindi page — works.
Tick CROSS-LANGUAGE SEARCH if the page is in another language. Your query gets translated to the page's language first.
Hit GO or press Enter.
Each result shows the section it came from + a context snippet with your query in yellow.
Click any result. The tab focuses, the page scrolls to that exact occurrence, and the match pulses red for 4 seconds.

⚡

The pulse jumps to occurrence #N, not the first match. So if there are 12 hits and you click result #7, you go straight to the 7th occurrence on the page.

FEATURE

Jargon explainer

Hover any acronym on the page — PAN, GST, PMJAY, NCLT, FEMA, CGHS, EPF, NREGA — and a tooltip appears with the full form and a one-line explanation. 80+ terms ship built-in.

🎨

Jargon terms get a soft yellow highlight with a dotted underline. Subtle enough not to clutter the page; obvious enough to know it's clickable.

FEATURE

Form auto-save (lifesaver)

Gov sites time you out at the worst possible moment. GovLens silently saves every keystroke into form fields to your browser's local storage.

Type into any form on a gov page. Saving is automatic — no confirmation dialog.
If your session dies and the page reloads, GovLens detects the saved draft and shows a yellow banner at the top.
Click RESTORE to refill every field with what you'd typed before. DISMISS deletes the draft.

🔒

Passwords, OTPs, captchas, and file inputs are never saved. Drafts live in your browser only — they never leave your machine.

FEATURE

The floating search bar

A small GL search bar sits in the bottom-right corner of every gov page. Type to highlight matches in yellow, use ↑/↓ to step through them. Active match goes red. ✕ hides it.

Don't want it? Settings (⚙) → Features → toggle off Show in-page floating toolbar.

HELP

Troubleshooting

The side panel shows "Cloud fallback needed"

Your browser doesn't have on-device translation for that language pair yet (or model isn't downloaded). Two options: (a) try a different target language; English-as-pivot usually works, or (b) add an Anthropic API key in Settings.

The translation looks slightly off

The on-device Translator API trades quality for privacy and speed. For higher quality, set up an Anthropic API key — Claude Haiku gives noticeably better gov-jargon translations.

"Could not read page" on Navigate tab

The page may not have finished loading, or it's a Chrome system page (extensions can't read those). Refresh the gov page and reopen the side panel.

Search shows no results but the word is on the page

If the page is in another language, tick CROSS-LANGUAGE SEARCH. Your query will be translated before searching.

How do I uninstall?

chrome://extensions → find GovLens → Remove. All local storage, drafts, and your API key are wiped.

That's everything. Go save someone's afternoon.

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