Chrome DevTools MCP: DevTools access for coding agents

When a front-end bug shows up, a coding agent usually sees only the error text you paste in. Why the page is slow, which request failed, where the console stack trace points: all of that stays out of view. Chrome DevTools MCP lets the agent control and inspect a live Chrome and debug with DevTools itself: record a trace, watch the network, read the console. The Chrome DevTools team maintains it, and it had about 53k stars as of 2026-10-06.

What it does

• Performance: performance_start_trace and performance_stop_trace record a trace, performance_analyze_insight extracts actionable findings, and lighthouse_audit runs Lighthouse.
• Network and console: list_network_requests shows requests, list_console_messages returns console output with source-mapped stack traces, and evaluate_script runs code in the page.
• Memory: more than a dozen tools such as take_heapsnapshot, compare_heapsnapshots and get_heapsnapshot_retaining_paths help track down leaks.
• Page actions: Puppeteer-based clicks, form fills, navigation and screenshots that wait for results automatically.
• Slim mode: --slim exposes a smaller tool set for basic browsing, which saves context.

Who it’s for

• Developers asking Claude Code, Cursor or Gemini CLI to fix front-end bugs, who need the agent to see the network and console for itself.
• Teams doing performance work who want the agent to record a trace and propose concrete fixes.

Setup

Needs Node.js LTS and current stable Chrome. In Claude Code:

claude mcp add chrome-devtools --scope user npx chrome-devtools-mcp@latest

Other clients:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "chrome-devtools": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "chrome-devtools-mcp@latest"]
    }
  }
}

Our take

It overlaps with Playwright MCP, but the emphasis differs: Playwright MCP is built for driving pages by structure, while Chrome DevTools MCP shines at debugging and performance, with traces, network data and heap snapshots that Playwright MCP doesn’t offer. Know a few things up front. It exposes browser content to the MCP client, so keep it away from a profile signed in to personal accounts. Google collects tool usage statistics by default; --no-usage-statistics turns that off. Performance tools may send trace URLs to the Google CrUX API for field data; --no-performance-crux disables it. Only Chrome and Chrome for Testing are officially supported. Licensed Apache-2.0.