Clippy Browser Bridge

A Chrome extension that lets Clippy drive your real signed-in tabs — about 60 seconds to install.

What this is

By default, Clippy opens a separate debug-flagged browser when it needs to do something on the web. That browser is a fresh profile — none of your cookies, none of your sessions, no Outlook or Gmail login. The bridge fixes that: Clippy uses your Chrome with your tabs already signed in.

Install in four steps

1

Download the extension

Grab the latest .zip from the official mcp-chrome release page. We use the open-source mcp-chrome project — Clippy talks to it locally on localhost:12306.

⬇ Download latest release

Chrome Web Store listing is in review — once it ships, this becomes one click. We'll auto-detect either install method.

2

Load it into Chrome

Unzip the file anywhere convenient, then in Chrome:

  1. Open chrome://extensions
  2. Flip on Developer mode (top-right corner)
  3. Click Load unpacked → point at the unzipped folder
3

Install the local bridge

The extension needs a tiny Node.js helper running on your machine to talk to Clippy. Open a terminal and run:

npm install -g mcp-chrome-bridge

If you don't have Node installed: grab the LTS installer here. ~30s, no other config.

4

Click Connect

Click the mcp-chrome icon in your Chrome toolbar → press Connect. The icon turns green.

Back in Clippy → Settings → Web Control → press ↻ Refresh. Clippy should report "ready" with a count of available browser tools.

What it does (and what it doesn't)

  • Local-only. The bridge listens on localhost:12306 — never exposed to the public internet. No telemetry to Cloudana.
  • You stay signed in. Clippy uses your existing Chrome profile and cookies. The bridge never asks for passwords.
  • Visible actions. Same Clippy rule — every click, navigation, and form input happens in front of you with the bridge enabled. No hidden background activity.
  • Disable any time. Right-click the extension → Remove from Chrome, or just stop the mcp-chrome-bridge process. Clippy falls back to the standalone debug browser automatically.

Trouble?

If Clippy says "mcp-chrome not detected" after step 4: usually means the bridge process isn't running. Re-run npm install -g mcp-chrome-bridge, then close and reopen Chrome to retrigger the connect handshake.

Still stuck? Email [email protected] with a Clippy log report (Settings → Tools → Report a problem) and we'll dig in.