What does muting a vendor do?
Muting a vendor hides that vendor's hits everywhere in Scalpel Tags, both the popup and the panel, while still showing that the vendor is present. It cuts noise from a chatty tag so you can watch the one you care about.
Why it matters
Some vendors are chatty. A session replay tool fires multiple times per second. An analytics library batches requests constantly. If you're debugging a specific tag's behaviour, the noise gets in the way. Muting hides a vendor's hits entirely, but marks the vendor as muted so you know it's still there and running. It's a middle ground between filtering (a temporary view) and closing the panel.
How it works
Muting stores your preference in the browser's local storage. Unlike the provider filter, which resets when you close the panel, a muted vendor stays muted across sessions and tabs. Your choice persists. When a vendor is muted, all its hits disappear from the table. A single "muted" row remains, showing how many hits were hidden, so you can unmute if you change your mind.
The mute state syncs between the popup and the side panel. If you mute Meta in the popup, it's already muted when you switch to the side panel. The two surfaces share the same storage key.
New vendors that fire after you've started watching do not inherit your mute preferences; they appear unmuted by default. Only the vendors you explicitly muted stay hidden.
What does not matter
Muting doesn't affect data capture. Scalpel Tags still records the vendor's requests in the internal log; muting only changes what you see. If you unmute, all the hits are still there in the timeline.
Muting doesn't pause recording or change what the panel tells you about the page. The header still shows the full vendor count, including muted ones. Only the table filters what you see.
Code example
On a page running Google Analytics, Meta Pixel, Segment and a session replay tool, you might mute the session replay first:
Vendor Hits
GA4 12
Meta Pixel 8
Segment 5
[Muted] Session Replay 247
Click the muted row to unmute, and the 247 replay hits flood back into the table. Click mute again on the Session Replay header to hide them once more.
How Scalpel shows it
Each vendor header has a mute icon (a speaker with a slash through it). Clicking it hides that vendor's rows and replaces them with a single collapsed row reading "[Muted] Vendor Name: N hits". Clicking that row unmutes. You can also right-click the vendor header for a context menu with the mute toggle. The mute state persists across page loads, popup closes and browser restarts.