I built a Chrome extension for one thing I kept missing in Google Sheets
I just released Spex, a free Chrome extension that adds Excel-style staged keyboard shortcuts to Google Sheets.
The initial idea was intentionally narrow: I wanted to press Alt / Option in Google Sheets and keep operating from the keyboard instead of reaching for the mouse.
Spex shows contextual KeyTips for the next available action, so you do not need to memorize the full shortcut map up front. There are two keymaps: a Sheets-native mapping, which is the default, and an Excel-style mapping for supported workflows where existing Excel keyboard habits are useful.
The interesting part turned out not to be adding more shortcuts. It was making the extension coexist with Google Sheets itself: normal typing, cell editing, formula editing, IME composition, focus changes, contextual menus, and a host DOM that can change independently of the extension.
That pushed the architecture toward a few rules I now think are broadly useful for browser extensions:
- keep shortcut semantics separate from host DOM selectors
- use different execution strategies for different commands instead of forcing everything through one mechanism
- fail closed when a host action cannot be resolved safely
- do not treat event dispatch as success; verify the resulting UI/state where possible
- test against the real host application at the boundaries most likely to break
I also deliberately did not turn Spex into an AI spreadsheet-analysis product. The scope is interaction: make Google Sheets easier to operate from the keyboard. Spex has no backend receiving extension usage data and no telemetry or analytics.
I built quite a bit of the launch pipeline as code too, including Store screenshots, promotional graphics, demo capture, TTS, and Remotion/FFmpeg video generation.
Spex is free.
Site: https://spex.kikuta.dev/en
Chrome Web Store: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/gahnolkboklnjhnaahjdkingoejbepcc
English demo: https://youtu.be/FSjnTVNEOps
The feedback I am most interested in is simple: if you use Google Sheets heavily, which repeated action still makes you reach for the mouse? And if you have launched a deliberately narrow productivity tool, how did you decide whether to keep the scope narrow or broaden it after the first users arrived?
The choice to keep Spex strictly about interaction instead of turning it into another AI spreadsheet tool is refreshing. The fail-closed approach around Google Sheets is also the kind of detail you only learn after fighting the host app for a while. Feels like this could be getting a lot more organic traffic than it is right now, especially for such a specific daily frustration. Curious which shortcut people keep asking for once they actually use it?
The deliberate decision to keep Spex focused on interaction rather than adding analysis makes the product easy to understand. Curious which repeated Sheets action users mention most.