The Story Behind VibeHeader
How a weekend "vibe-coding" session created an ad-free ModHeader alternative 😂
🚨 The Breaking Point
It started like any other day. I was using ModHeader for work, and it had been fine for months. Then things got... weird.
"The issue with the extension is that is far beyond what it initial should have been and is bloated with functions that has nothing to do with Headers anymore."
— Me, frustrated on Reddit 😤
But the real tipping point? Three specific pain points that hit all at once:
- 📱 The Screenshot Hell — Teammates kept sending header configs as screenshots. I'd spend forever retyping them.
- 🔤 The "la vs Ia" Incident — Once got a config called "la" in a screenshot. Turns out it was "Ia" (uppercase I). Took 20 minutes to debug.
- 🚫 The Random Ads — Every Chrome restart, random ads would pop up. "maxme"?? I never even installed that!
⚡ The Weekend That Changed Everything
That was it. I posted on Reddit asking for alternatives, got a few suggestions, but nothing felt quite right.
So I did what any reasonable developer would do... I vibe-coded my own solution over a weekend 😂
🎯 The "Vibe Coding" Philosophy
- 💡 Lightweight → literally just headers, nothing else
- 🚫 No ads, no weird bloat → clean and focused
- 🔗 Share rules with a simple link → uses URL fragment, nothing goes to servers
- ✋ No more copy-paste hell → one-click import from links
⚙️ The Tech Behind the Magic
Since we're all developers here, you're probably wondering: what did I actually use to build this thing? 🤓
The Stack: Cursor + Codex IDE + Codex CLI
Plot twist: I was actually a Claude Code loyalist before this. But around that time, Claude Code's performance was... let's say "suboptimal" 😬. A friend recommended Codex, so I figured why not give Codex GPT-5 a shot.
🚀 Why Codex Impressed Me
- 💡 Modest but reliable — didn't oversell, actually delivered
- ⚡ Medium mode was enough — didn't even need "high" for the entire project
- 🐛 Great at debugging — paste a log, get a real solution
- 🎯 No hallucinations — unlike *cough* Claude Code claiming it did things it didn't
Honestly, Sam Altman tweeting that Codex usage grew 10x during that period? Zero surprise there. 📈
The not-so-great parts: Input field UI was a bit janky (sometimes Enter worked, sometimes needed Cmd+Enter 🤷♂️). CLI was decent but not as feature-rich as Claude Code CLI. Took me a while to even find the CLI input field initially.
But hey, minor quirks aside — the overall experience was pretty damn smooth for a weekend hack project. 🎉
✨ The Result
What started as a weekend project to solve my own frustrations turned into something that's helping developers escape ModHeader's bloat.
The best part? That URL fragment sharing feature I built to solve the "screenshot hell" problem? It's become the most loved feature. Teams can now share header configs with a simple link — no more retyping, no more guessing uppercase vs lowercase.
💬 What Developers Are Saying
"Finally, a header editor that just works. No ads, no bloat, and the sharing feature is brilliant!"
— Sarah K., Frontend Developer
"Switched from ModHeader last month. The one-click config sharing saved our team so much time."
— Mike R., DevOps Engineer
🚀 Ready to Escape the Bloat?
If you're tired of ModHeader's ads and bloat, or frustrated with copy-pasting header configurations, VibeHeader might just save you a headache.
Built by a developer, for developers. No ads, no tracking, just clean header management that works.