Cursor & Windsurf Browser Automation with Chrome MCP

Enable Cursor, Windsurf, Gemini, Qwen, and DeepSeek coding assistants to control your real signed-in Google Chrome browser with zero cloud credentials.

1. Configuring MCP in Cursor

Add the following block to your project's .cursor/mcp.json or your global Cursor MCP configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "chrome": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "agent-webbridge", "mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Once saved, Cursor's Composer and Chat agents automatically list the 13 browser_* tools under active tools.

2. Configuring MCP in Windsurf (Cascade)

In Windsurf, open Cascade Settings → MCP Servers (or edit ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json) and paste:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "chrome": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "agent-webbridge", "mcp"]
    }
  }
}

3. Recommended .cursorrules for Browser Tasks

To ensure Cursor uses browser tools efficiently without wasting tokens on raw HTML or heavy screenshots, add these rules to .cursorrules:

# Browser Automation Rules (WebBridge)
- When reading or inspecting web pages, ALWAYS use `browser_snapshot` first to get the semantic accessibility tree with @e element references.
- DO NOT request raw HTML via `browser_evaluate` unless specifically inspecting head tags or shadow DOM.
- When taking screenshots, ALWAYS provide a file path to `browser_screenshot` (e.g. `/tmp/preview.png`) to keep base64 images out of the context window.
- When automating multiple tabs, pass `tabId` to run operations in parallel.

4. Real-World AI IDE Workflows

• Live Localhost Debugging: Ask Cursor: "Open localhost:3000, trigger the error state in the checkout flow, snapshot the DOM, and fix the React component in our workspace."
• API Documentation Verification: Ask Windsurf: "Open the Stripe API docs in Chrome, verify the parameter types for idempotency keys, and update our TypeScript definition."
• Authenticated Cloud Console Inspection: Ask Claude or Qwen: "Open my Vercel deployments page, check the build logs for the latest preview branch, and summarize the build error."

Frequently Asked Questions