Chrome Extension to sync code between computers?

[davidyang]

Hi Pybricks team - love the software and I'm 100% convinced it helped us win our regional championships last year!

However, one thing that continues to drive me a bit crazy is the file sync between computers. I let each student have their own file but then we also try to make libraries of useful things to share between the files. Syncing these on the web IDE can get frustrating and lead to errors.

I know it's not on the priority list - but I'm interested in building a Chrome extension that would handle the sync. The basic idea would be to read the files out of IndexedDB and use Google AppData (or just a custom built endpoint) to sync between computers on a last-write basis (perhaps with file histories that could be restored at certain snapshots).

Of course, as my team gets older I'll move them off to VSCode and Github but I have an eight year old who is still not that comfortable with typing but OK with the blocks.

Would love to hear your thoughts (and advice) on this idea and if it would be enough or if the IndexedDB storage isn't quite what I need and there's another place where the files are truly kept?

[dlech]

A Chrome extension is an interesting idea to get a solution without having to wait for us, but risks breaking if we make internal changes to Pybricks Code.

I've also seen a few attempts at integrating something directly into Pybricks Code.

• https://github.com/scatwang/pybricks-code @scatwang
• https://github.com/lshepard/synced-pybricks-code @lshepard

Also, the web filesystem API's have come a long way since we started Pybricks Code, so maybe we could try saving files to the local file system instead of in the indexeddb and let <insert your favorite file syncing software here> handle the syncing between systems. Proper file system access would even handle more use cases than syncing files. Unfortunately, from time to time we have users lose all of their programs that weren't backed up because the browser decides to clear out the indexeddb without warning.

[scatwang]

Thanks for referencing.

You can try my forked pybircks-code, individual file can be uploaded or downloaded from a google drive folder.
There is a live demo hosted by GitHub at this link: https://scatwang.github.io/pybricks-code/.

Based on our team's experience with 5th and 6th graders, this version has worked well, but some kids may need time to get familiar with this new steps.

[Kikketer]

Yes please! Highly interested in this sync, I’ll have to give it a look.

The way I run the teams for 5-7th graders is we have shared laptops. Typically they’ll pick up the same ones but not always which leads to so many headaches.

With the official spike prime editor, on a Chromebook, you can save the file to a Google Drive folder and from that point on it’s just saved automatically and synced. There’s not even a need to manually save again once this is set up.

Another bonus is that Google Drive has versioning, so you can always go back in time as well!

please I’d love to see this added to pybricks, it’s the #1 reason I can’t use it in the classroom setting. The file management is just too complicated and fragile as it is.

[davidyang]

Thanks for the response @dlech !  So I'm guessing it's not too difficult to run an instance of the IDE code (just without the blocks)?

I haven't tried setting pybricks-ide up locally yet but also I'd like to have the blocks for now until my team gets older.  I had some npm install issues but I haven't spend any time debugging it.

So it sounds like the IndexedDB contents database is the source of truth for the files for now? I'll give the extension a shot and see how it goes.

Thanks for the code @scatwang - will take a look as well and see if it works for us.

[dlech]

If you use VS Code (on your computer or in a browser), getting things up and running from the Pybricks Code source code repository is pretty simple since we have a devcontainer. You have to have docker installed, but then it will automatically install all build requirements in a docker container and you just have to run yarn start to get it built and open in a browser.

So it sounds like the IndexedDB contents database is the source of truth for the files for now?

for now, yes

[davidyang]

Is there a public API or easy way to force the IDE to reload the files from IndexedDB? We've made great progress on a sync chrome extension that I think is going to be awesome for teams but right now have to refresh the app to load the code.

@dlech

[dlech]

No, there isn't anything like that, so I think refreshing the page is as good as it gets.

[laurensvalk]

Thanks @davidyang, @Kikketer , @scatwang for your ideas! We've been looking at this as well, with some concepts in progress.

As a first step, I think it would be nice to sync to a local folder. If we can design it to work well with local apps such as Google Drive, Dropbox, or even Git, we might not have to integrate those into Pybricks.

Aside from the technical side, there are some user considerations. The following seems quite useful and practical.

Open to your input!

Choosing a local folder
In Pybricks, you click "Save files to local folder". You choose and approve a local folder.

Just this once, all .py files are copied both ways. No deletes, no surprises.

Synchronization
When you edit or delete a file in Pybricks, changes are made to your local files automatically as you go.

If you edit or delete a file locally, that change will show up in Pybricks automatically.

There aren't any (official) APIs (yet) that will give us events on file changes. We can poll after some time, as well as on events such as opening the file explorer. We can replace this with APIs with file change events once they are stable.

In all cases, the user file system wins if there is a conflict. This lets git/dropbox/drive do what they are good at, rather than us reinventing the wheel. We can start this way, at least.

Blocks
Blockly doesn't handle arbitrary changes very well, so it will have to reload that component if changes are made.

[laurensvalk]

Here's what that could look like:

new-2026-04-16_21.04.48.mp4

[scatwang]

For our FLL team, the ideal workflow would include:

• A Shared Workspace: All members working out of a single shared directory.
• Collaborative Deployment: Individual .py files that can be deployed to a single hub and run together.
• Cross-User Editing: The ability for students to build on or modify each other's files.
• Basic Version Control: A native way to view or rollback to historical versions.

I'm concerned that a purely local file-sync solution might not fully solve these collaboration hurdles for teams. They really need to know when and who changed which line in the code, when cloud sync is delegated to another app, this information can not be provided.

Additionally, I previously tried using the official Google Drive windows app to enable a directory sync with cloud, but the synced directory doesn't support sharing between different Google accounts. (I have only tried Google Drive, since our kids already get used to it with my fork build https://scatwang.github.io/pybricks-code/)

Since Pybricks-code is a web app, I still believe a cloud-based model would be a game-changer for team collaboration.

[davidyang]

Hi @laurensvalk - I actually worked with @s-tn on this problem earlier this year and we built a pretty awesome Chrome extension that I used with my kids for FLL (we got 1st place Robot Game in NYC - 485 points). BTW, I attribute a large part of our success to teaching the kids how to use Pybricks with github, I can't really imagine how kids are competing without it (though I have heard more professional teams just use the VSCode plugins).

I'll add you to the repo to take a look at our design, probably not worth building on top of since we had to use some script injection tricks into pybricks. But design observations we saw:

• We built Github login (they have something called device login that works well for this)
• Then you can select a repo/branch that your code syncs to - so every user would have something like davidyang/dev that when they saved it would push to. We tried a version where we pushed every build but that created too much noise.
• We linked to Github tools to view local diffs (create a temp commit and diff it against remote dev branch), submit pull requests and sync from main back to your branch. We used Github's conflict resolving tools rather than build something inline. It doesn't create the cleanest Git history but we never really noticed that being a problem.
• We tried a version where it was live sync but that actually causes more problems. I realized immediately that live sync in code is an anti-pattern since with pybricks you're constantly building/pushing and someone else's sync can break your build easily
• I think our biggest problem was that we couldn't two-way sync from the IndexedDB library you were using so when our Chrome extension updated the code via Dexie we just refreshed the page. I'm sure if this was more properly integrated that wouldn't be a problem.

Just some observations we had - we used it to much success and those were the design parameters that worked for us. For FLL - typically kids were changing just their one file (one file per mission) rather than more global changes. For a real coding project where there are more layered abstractions and utilities that may break down.

A screenshot of how it looked:

[davidyang]

I would say that we built this for kids who didn't understand git that well so it's like a poor man's git. I do think the right pattern is to rely as heavily on github's tools as possible though - since a lot of those tools are pain / challenging to build yourself (diff viewers, conflict resolvers etc) and we wanted a terminal free experience.

[laurensvalk]

Very cool. I'm so glad to hear your teams had a fun experience and did so well!

In the upcoming version, two students can be connected to the robot at the same time. Students will still need to coordinate of course, but the robot is often sitting idle during code sessions anyway, and this reduces the hassle considerably.

[davidyang]

Have you seen the upcoming tech from the CS&AI kit? I don't know much about the tech stack on it and I'm concerned that they'll lock it down similar to how they locked down the racing cars with internal keys. I was really hoping to remote control with Xbox the Porsche/Lamborghini but it sounds like in another thread that it will unlikely ever happen. It's really a bummer - the Spike with Pybricks really is such an amazing build platform for kids - my kids have integrated it with all kinds of stuff (like the Orrery and City trains). I feel like there is a market for someone to provide backwards compatible hardware to Spike so that some of these competitions can keep going.

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On Thu, Apr 16, 2026 at 3:37 PM Laurens Valk ***@***.***> wrote: Very cool. I'm so glad to hear your teams had a fun experience and did so well! In the upcoming version <https://beta.pybricks.com/>, two students can be connected to the robot at the same time. Students will still need to coordinate of course, but the robot is often sitting idle during code sessions anyway, and this reduces the hassle considerably. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#2351 (reply in thread)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAACNRNQCZABF6NHRCM2X3T4WEY6RAVCNFSM6AAAAACWGCRFMSVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43URDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHMYTMNJZGI4DEMI> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[laurensvalk]

I was really hoping to remote control with Xbox the Porsche/Lamborghini but it sounds like in another thread that it will unlikely ever happen.

😎

VID-20260212-WA0060.mp4

I feel like there is a market for someone to provide backwards compatible hardware to Spike so that some of these competitions can keep going.

We're on a mission to revive EV3 from 10 years ago and there's at least a million of them still out there. Spike won't be going anyway any time soon if we can help it :)

FIRST will still be allowing teams to enter with SPIKE beyond next year (it's in their official FAQ).

[davidyang]

Are there instructions for that somewhere? I saw that someone had hacked a laptop to control it (xbox -> laptop -> car) but this could be cooler for being kid playable. like a super advanced bluetooth smartbrick! My guess is that FIRST can't run a program if schools can't buy something at scale from a company that can support returns and invoicing. Even with the EV3/Spike second-hand market, new teams just won't be able to get going. pybricks is one of my favorite open-source projects so I'm wishing the best for this community and FLL long-term but I'm just worried that Lego has really walked away from robotics longer-term.

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On Thu, Apr 16, 2026 at 5:22 PM Laurens Valk ***@***.***> wrote: I was really hoping to remote control with Xbox the Porsche/Lamborghini but it sounds like in another thread that it will unlikely ever happen. 😎 https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/80576da4-f55a-49f4-831c-59343e5ed00d I feel like there is a market for someone to provide backwards compatible hardware to Spike so that some of these competitions can keep going. We're on a mission to revive EV3 from 10 years ago and there's at least a million of them still out there. Spike won't be going anyway any time soon if we can help it :) FIRST will still be allowing teams to enter with SPIKE beyond next year (it's in their official FAQ). — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#2351 (reply in thread)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAACNROATGPU7O45JMDLH4L4WFFH7AVCNFSM6AAAAACWGCRFMSVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43URDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHMYTMNJZGM4DSNI> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[laurensvalk]

someone had hacked

That would have been for the YouTube thumbnail. It is probably just using the same protocol as we are.

Are there instructions for that somewhere?

You can make the following program with the latest beta. Just turn everything on and run this program.

And the next time it will just be saved on the hub, so no computers required. You can use the SPIKE Prime Hub, Mindstorms Inventor Hub, or the smaller Essential Hub pictured above.