cc-chrome-agent

MCP server to control Chrome browsers on your network via Claude's Chrome extension.

Control any Chrome browser — locally or on remote machines — directly from Claude Code, Claude Desktop, or any MCP client. Navigate pages, fill forms, click buttons, take screenshots, run JavaScript, and more.

How it works

Claude Code / Claude Desktop / Any MCP Client
        |
        | MCP (stdio)
        v
cc-chrome-agent (this server)
        |
        | Socket protocol (4-byte length-prefix + JSON)
        v
Chrome + Claude Extension (local or remote)

The Claude Chrome extension exposes browser automation tools via a local Unix socket. This MCP server connects to that socket and makes those tools available to any MCP client.

For remote Chrome instances, a TCP bridge server proxies the socket over the network, with optional mDNS discovery.

Quick Start

1. Install

# From GitHub:
pip install git+https://github.com/delltrak/cc_chrome_agent.git

# With network discovery (mDNS):
pip install "cc-chrome-agent[network] @ git+https://github.com/delltrak/cc_chrome_agent.git"

Or from source:

git clone https://github.com/delltrak/cc_chrome_agent
cd cc_chrome_agent
pip install -e .

2. Prerequisites

• Chrome (or Chromium-based browser) with the Claude extension installed
• Open the Claude extension sidebar at least once to activate the native host
• Claude Code (or any MCP client)

3. Register with Claude Code

claude mcp add cc-chrome-agent -- cc-chrome-agent

4. Use it

Just ask Claude to interact with your browser:

> Open github.com and tell me the trending repos today
> Fill the login form with [email protected] and click submit
> Take a screenshot of the current page
> Run document.title in the browser console

Claude Code will use the MCP tools automatically.

If the browser is closed, cc-chrome-agent now tries to launch a local Chromium browser automatically and waits for the Claude bridge socket to appear. If the browser is already open, it reuses the existing local bridge.

Tools

Browser Control

Page Reading

Tab Management

Network (Meta)

Local Browser Bootstrap

When a tool needs local Chrome and no bridge socket exists yet, the server will:

1. Reuse an existing local socket if one is already available.
2. Try to launch a local Chromium browser automatically.
3. Wait for the Claude extension socket to appear.
4. Reconnect automatically if the local socket drops mid-session.

Important caveat: the Claude extension still needs to be installed and activated on that machine. On a fresh install, open the extension sidebar once so the native host socket can be created.

Network Mode

Control Chrome on remote machines (e.g., a test server, a colleague's desktop).

On the remote machine

# Install and start the bridge server:
pip install cc-chrome-agent
cc-chrome-agent serve

# With specific port:
cc-chrome-agent serve --port 9000

The bridge server:

• Finds the local Chrome socket automatically
• Exposes it via TCP
• Advertises via mDNS (if zeroconf is installed)

From your machine

> Discover Chrome bridges on the network
> Connect to the bridge at 192.168.1.20
> Navigate to example.com and take a screenshot

Or discover from the command line:

cc-chrome-agent discover
cc-chrome-agent discover --scan    # TCP subnet scan (no mDNS needed)
cc-chrome-agent discover --json    # JSON output

Configuration

Claude Code

# Register the MCP server:
claude mcp add cc-chrome-agent -- cc-chrome-agent

# With verbose logging:
claude mcp add cc-chrome-agent -- cc-chrome-agent --verbose

# Remove:
claude mcp remove cc-chrome-agent

Claude Desktop

Add to your Claude Desktop config (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cc-chrome-agent": {
      "command": "cc-chrome-agent"
    }
  }
}

Manual MCP config

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cc-chrome-agent": {
      "command": "python3",
      "args": ["-m", "cc_chrome_agent"]
    }
  }
}

Skip permission prompts

When Claude Code uses Chrome tools for the first time, the extension asks whether to "Act without asking" or "Ask before acting". To skip this prompt and always allow actions automatically, set this environment variable:

# Add to your ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc:
export CLAUDE_CHROME_PERMISSION_MODE="skip_all_permission_checks"

Available modes:

Environment variables

Use these when the browser is not in a default location or when you want tighter startup control:

CC_CHROME_AGENT_BROWSER_COMMAND="/custom/browser/bin/chrome --profile-directory=Default"
CC_CHROME_AGENT_BROWSER_APP="Google Chrome"
CC_CHROME_AGENT_START_URL="about:blank"
CC_CHROME_AGENT_BOOT_TIMEOUT="20"
CC_CHROME_AGENT_AUTO_LAUNCH="1"

• CC_CHROME_AGENT_BROWSER_COMMAND: full custom launch command, used first
• CC_CHROME_AGENT_BROWSER_APP: preferred browser app or executable name
• CC_CHROME_AGENT_START_URL: URL opened during auto-launch
• CC_CHROME_AGENT_BOOT_TIMEOUT: seconds to wait for the bridge socket
• CC_CHROME_AGENT_AUTO_LAUNCH: set to 0 to disable browser auto-launch

CLI Reference

cc-chrome-agent                  Start MCP server (stdio)
cc-chrome-agent serve            Start TCP bridge for remote access
cc-chrome-agent discover         Find Chrome bridges on the network
cc-chrome-agent --version        Show version
cc-chrome-agent --verbose        Enable debug logging

serve options

--port PORT       TCP port (default: 8765)
--sock PATH       Unix socket path (auto-detected)
--no-mdns         Disable mDNS advertisement
--launch-timeout  Seconds to wait for a bridge after auto-launch
--no-launch       Disable local browser auto-launch

discover options

--timeout SECS    Discovery timeout (default: 3.0)
--scan            Force TCP subnet scan
--json            JSON output

Supported Browsers

Any Chromium-based browser that supports the Claude extension:

• Google Chrome
• Chrome Canary
• Brave
• Microsoft Edge
• Arc
• Vivaldi
• Chromium

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                  MCP Client                     │
│         (Claude Code / Desktop / SDK)           │
└──────────────────┬──────────────────────────────┘
                   │ MCP (stdio, JSON-RPC 2.0)
                   │
┌──────────────────▼──────────────────────────────┐
│             cc-chrome-agent                     │
│                                                 │
│  ┌─────────────┐  ┌────────────┐  ┌──────────┐ │
│  │ MCP Server  │  │   Bridge   │  │ Discovery│ │
│  │ (tools)     │──│ (protocol) │  │ (mDNS/   │ │
│  │             │  │            │  │  scan)    │ │
│  └─────────────┘  └─────┬──────┘  └──────────┘ │
└──────────────────────────┼──────────────────────┘
                           │
              ┌────────────┼────────────┐
              │ Local      │ Remote     │
              │            │            │
     ┌────────▼───┐  ┌─────▼──────┐    │
     │ Unix Socket│  │  TCP:8765  │    │
     │ /tmp/...   │  │  (bridge)  │    │
     └────────┬───┘  └─────┬──────┘    │
              │            │            │
     ┌────────▼────────────▼───────┐   │
     │    Chrome + Claude Extension│   │
     │    (native host socket)     │   │
     └─────────────────────────────┘   │

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• Chrome (or Chromium-based browser) with Claude extension
• Optional: zeroconf for mDNS network discovery

License

MIT