brave-mcp

Brave MCP

Fork of ChromeDevTools/chrome-devtools-mcp ported to Brave Browser.

npm: brave-mcp · repo: triuzzi/brave-devtools-mcp

brave-mcp lets your coding agent (such as Claude, Cursor, Gemini or Copilot) control and inspect a live Brave browser. It acts as a Model-Context-Protocol (MCP) server, giving your AI coding assistant access to the full power of DevTools for reliable automation, in-depth debugging, and performance analysis. A CLI is also provided for use without MCP.

Tool reference | Changelog | Contributing | Troubleshooting | Design Principles

Key features

• Get performance insights: Uses Chrome DevTools to record traces and extract actionable performance insights.
• Advanced browser debugging: Analyze network requests, take screenshots and check browser console messages (with source-mapped stack traces).
• Reliable automation. Uses puppeteer to automate actions in Brave and automatically wait for action results.

Disclaimers

brave-devtools-mcp exposes content of the browser instance to the MCP clients allowing them to inspect, debug, and modify any data in the browser or DevTools. Avoid sharing sensitive or personal information that you don't want to share with MCP clients.

Performance tools may send trace URLs to the Google CrUX API to fetch real-user experience data. To disable this, run with the --no-performance-crux flag.

Usage statistics from the upstream project are disabled by default in this fork. You can explicitly enable them with --usage-statistics if desired.

Requirements

• Node.js LTS version.
• Brave Browser current release version or newer.
• npm

Note: Do not use chrome-devtools-mcp@latest from npm — that installs Google's Chrome-oriented server. This fork is brave-mcp.

Setup

Quick start (via npm)

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

Add this to your MCP client config and you're done. Works with Claude Code (~/.mcp.json), Cursor (Settings → MCP), VS Code Copilot, and any other MCP client.

From source (for development)

git clone https://github.com/triuzzi/brave-devtools-mcp.git
cd brave-devtools-mcp
npm install
npm run build

Run npm run build again after git pull when you update the repo.

Then point your MCP config at the built CLI with an absolute path:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brave-devtools": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": [
        "/absolute/path/to/brave-devtools-mcp/build/src/bin/brave-devtools-mcp.js"
      ]
    }
  }
}

This works with Claude Code (~/.mcp.json), Cursor (Settings → MCP → New MCP Server, or mcp.json), VS Code Copilot, and any other MCP client.

If Brave is not detected automatically, set BRAVE_PATH:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brave-devtools": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": [
        "/absolute/path/to/brave-devtools-mcp/build/src/bin/brave-devtools-mcp.js"
      ],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_PATH": "/Applications/Brave Browser.app/Contents/MacOS/Brave Browser"
      }
    }
  }
}

3. Choose your connection mode

The server has two modes: launch a new instance (default) or attach to your existing Brave window.

Mode A: Launch a new instance (default)

With the basic config above, the server spawns a dedicated Brave instance with its own profile. Your existing Brave windows are untouched. This is the simplest mode — no extra setup needed.

Mode B: Attach to your existing Brave window

If you want the MCP server to control the Brave window you already have open (same tabs, cookies, logins), you need to start Brave with remote debugging enabled.

Step 1: Quit Brave completely, then relaunch with the debugging flag:

# macOS
open -a "Brave Browser" --args --remote-debugging-port=9222

# Linux
brave-browser --remote-debugging-port=9222

# Windows
"C:\Program Files\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\Application\brave.exe" --remote-debugging-port=9222

Tip: To always start Brave with remote debugging, add --remote-debugging-port=9222 to Brave's launch shortcut or shell alias so you never have to think about it again.

Step 2: Add --browserUrl to your MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brave-devtools": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "brave-mcp@latest",
        "--browserUrl",
        "http://localhost:9222"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Or if running from source: