https://developer.chrome.com/blog/chrome-devtools-mcp-debug-your-browser-session

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    Blog

Let your Coding Agent debug your browser session with Chrome DevTools
MCP Stay organized with collections Save and categorize content based
on your preferences.

Sebastian Benz
Sebastian Benz
   
Alex Rudenko
Alex Rudenko
  

Published: December 11, 2025

We shipped an enhancement to the Chrome DevTools MCP server that many
of our users have been asking for: the ability for coding agents to
directly connect to active browser sessions.

With this enhancement, coding agents are able to:

 1. Re-use an existing browser session: Imagine you want your coding
    agent to fix an issue that is gated behind a sign-in. Your coding
    agent can now directly access your current browsing session not
    requiring an additional sign-in.
 2. Access active debugging sessions: Coding agents can now access an
    active debugging session in the DevTools UI. For example, when
    you discover a failing network request in the Chrome DevTools
    network panel, select the request and ask your coding agent to
    investigate it. The same also works with elements selected in the
    Elements panel. We are excited about this new ability to
    seamlessly transition between manual and AI-assisted debugging.

See it in action:

The auto connection feature is an addition to the existing ways for
the Chrome DevTools MCP to connect to a Chrome instance. Note that
you can still:

  * Run Chrome with a Chrome DevTools MCP server-specific user
    profile (current default).
  * Connect to a running Chrome instance with a remote debug port.
  * Run multiple Chrome instances in isolation with each instance
    running in a temporary profile.

How it works

We've added a new feature to Chrome M144 (currently in Beta) that
allows the Chrome DevTools MCP server to request a remote debugging
connection. This new flow builds on top of the existing remote
debugging capabilities of Chrome. By default, remote debugging
connections are disabled in Chrome. Developers have to explicitly
enable the feature first by going to chrome://inspect#
remote-debugging.

When the Chrome DevTools MCP server is configured with the
--autoConnect option, the MCP server will connect to an active Chrome
instance and request a remote debugging session. To avoid misuse by
malicious actors, every time the Chrome DevTools MCP server requests
a remote debugging session, Chrome will show a dialog to the user and
ask for their permission to allow the remote debugging session. In
addition to that, while a debugging session is active, Chrome
displays the "Chrome is being controlled by automated test software"
banner at the top.

Remote debugging flow: First enable the remote debugging features.
Then confirm a remote debug connection request. The debug session
will be indicated by a banner text. The new remote debugging flow and
UI in Chrome.

Get started

To use the new remote debugging capabilities. You have to first
enable remote debugging in Chrome and then configure the Chrome
DevTools MCP server to use the new auto connection feature.

Step 1: Set up remote debugging in Chrome

In Chrome (>=144), do the following to set up remote debugging:

 1. Navigate to chrome://inspect/#remote-debugging to enable remote
    debugging.
 2. Follow the dialog UI to allow or disallow incoming debugging
    connections.

Screenshot showing how to enable remote debugging in Chrome Remote
debugging needs to be enabled, before clients can request a remote
debugging connection.

Step 2: Configure Chrome DevTools MCP server to automatically connect
to a running Chrome Instance

To connect the chrome-devtools-mcp server to the running Chrome
instance, use --autoConnect command line argument for the MCP server
set.

The following code snippet is an example configuration for
gemini-cli:

{
   "mcpServers": {
    "chrome-devtools": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "chrome-devtools-mcp@latest",
        "--autoConnect",
        "--channel=beta"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Note: you have to specify --channel=beta until Chrome M144 has
reached the stable channel.

Step 3: Test your setup

Now open gemini-cli and run the following prompt:

Check the performance of https://developers.chrome.com

Note: The autoConnect option requires the user to start Chrome.

The Chrome DevTools MCP server will try to connect to your running
Chrome instance. It shows a dialog asking for user permission:

Chrome dialog asking the user to enable a remote debugging session.
Chrome asking for user permission to start a remote debugging
session.

Clicking Allow results in the Chrome DevTools MCP server opening
developers.chrome.com and taking a performance trace.

For full instructions, check out the README on GitHub.

Let your coding agent take over your debugging session

Being able to connect to a live Chrome instance means you don't have
to choose between automation and manual control. You can use DevTools
yourself or hand over a debugging task to your coding agent. If you
discover a problem on your website, you can open DevTools to take a
look to identify the element that's causing the issue. If you want
your coding agent to fix the issue, you can now do so with Chrome
DevTools MCP Server. You can select the element in the Elements panel
and ask the coding agent to investigate the issue.

The same also works for the Network panel. You can select a network
request and ask your coding agent to investigate it.

But this is just a first step. We plan to incrementally expose more
and more panel data to coding agents through the Chrome DevTools MCP
Server. Stay tuned!

Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and code samples are
licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. For details, see the Google
Developers Site Policies. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle
and/or its affiliates.

Last updated 2025-12-16 UTC.

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