Install

Getting Veil running takes about ten minutes. Here's exactly what you need to do.

Before you start

Veil has two parts. You need both:

  1. The Chrome extension — this is what monitors your input fields and shows the highlights.
  2. The local GLiNER2 server — a small Python process that runs the NER model on your machine.

If the server isn’t running, the extension falls back to regex-only detection. That still catches emails, phone numbers, SSNs, and API keys — just not names, organisations, or addresses. For full coverage, you want both running.

Requirements

Tool Version
Google Chrome (or any Chromium-based browser) 120 or later
Python 3.10 or later
Node.js 18 or later
Disk space for the model weights ~400 MB

Step 1 — Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/nishikantmandal007/Veil.git
cd Veil

That’s all you need from GitHub. Everything else runs from inside this folder.

Step 2 — Set up the Python environment

This creates a virtual environment and installs the GLiNER2 dependencies. It only needs to happen once.

npm run setup

Then download the model weights. This is a one-time download of about 400 MB:

npm run download-gliner2

Once that’s done, start the server:

npm run run-gliner2

Leave that terminal window open. You’ll see a message when the server is ready. The server binds to 127.0.0.1:8765 — loopback only, not accessible from the network.

Tip: If you’d rather have the model load on the first scan request (faster startup, slower first detection), use npm run run-gliner2-lazy instead.

Step 3 — Load the extension in Chrome

  1. Open Chrome and go to chrome://extensions
  2. Turn on Developer mode using the toggle in the top-right corner
  3. Click Load unpacked
  4. Navigate to the Veil folder you cloned and select the extension/ subfolder — not the root of the repo
  5. The Veil shield icon appears in your toolbar

Pin it for easy access. That’s it — the extension is installed.

Step 4 — Verify it’s working

Open ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini and type something into the message box. Try a name, an email address, or a phone number.

Within about a second of you stopping typing, Veil should highlight the detected PII directly in the text field. If you see the highlights, everything is working.

If nothing appears, click the Veil icon in your toolbar and check the server status indicator. If it shows the server as unreachable, go back to the terminal where you ran npm run run-gliner2 and make sure it started without errors.

Autostart (optional)

If you’d rather not manually start the server every time you boot your machine, Veil can set that up for you.

Linux:

npm run install-autostart-linux

macOS and Windows — autostart scripts are in progress. Check the releases page for the latest.

To remove autostart on Linux:

npm run remove-autostart-linux

Keeping Veil up to date

git pull origin main
npm run setup

Then go to chrome://extensions and click the reload button on the Veil extension card. The model weights don’t need to be re-downloaded unless the model version changes — check the changelog when updating.

Troubleshooting

What you’re seeing What to try
No highlights in ChatGPT Check the Veil popup — is the server status green? If not, run npm run run-gliner2
Server crashes immediately on start Run npm run setup again. A dependency may have failed to install the first time
Extension not appearing in chrome://extensions Make sure you selected the extension/ subfolder, not the top-level repo folder
First scan takes 10+ seconds Normal behaviour when using --lazy-load. The model loads on first use and is fast after that
Highlights appear but redaction doesn’t work Refresh the page and try again. Some sites override the DOM in ways that require a fresh attach

If you’re still stuck, open an issue on GitHub. Include the browser console output from the tab where detection isn’t working — that’s usually enough to diagnose the problem.