> If I asked you to build a table and gave you a Home Depot you probably would have a harder time than if I gave you a saw, a hammer and some nails. I doubt that, first and not least because Home Depot stocks lumber.
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MCP-B: A Protocol for AI Browser Automation
81–90 of 200 posts
Re: MCP-B: A Protocol for AI Browser Automation
#82This puts the burden on the website owner. If I go through the trouble of creating and publishing an MCP server for my website, I assume that through some directory or method I'll be able to communicate that with consumers (browsers & other clients). It would be much more valuable for website owners if you can automate the MCP creation & maintenance.
Pretty much every revolution in how we do things originates from the supplier. When websites became a thing the burden was on businesses to build them. Same with REST APIs. Same with mobile apps. As soon as there’s a competitive advantage to having the new thing, companies will respond if consumers demand it.
Am I going to start to choose products based on their compatibility with WebMCP?
Re: MCP-B: A Protocol for AI Browser Automation
#83can someone explain like I am five?
A website owner can publish their website's capabilities or data as "tools". AI agents and LLMs like ChatGPT, in response to user prompts, can consult these tools to figure out their next actions.
Example:
1. An author has a website for their self-published book. It currently checks book availability with their database when add to cart is clicked.
2. The website publishes "check book availability" and "add to cart" as "tools", using this MCP-B protocol.
3. A user instructs ChatGPT or some AI agent to "Buy 3 copies of author's book from https://theirbooksite"
4. The AI agent visits the site. Finds that it's MCP-B compliant. Using MCP-B, it gets the list of available tools. It finds a tool called "check book availability", and uses it to figure out if ordering 3 copies is possible. If yes, it'll next call "add to cart" tool on the website.
The website here is actively cooperating with the agent/LLM and supplying structured data. Instead of being a passive collection of UI elements that AI chatbots have to figure out based on UI layouts or UI captions, which are generally very brittle approaches.
Re: MCP-B: A Protocol for AI Browser Automation
#84Would it be possible to do this with any arbitrary website since we can execute JS client side?
Yeah, I am tempted to rig up a "generic" webpage MCP injected via greasemonkey just so I can use this UI for navigating the web.
Re: MCP-B: A Protocol for AI Browser Automation
#85I’ve haven’t used any MCP so far but as a disabled person I see use cases in accessibility for MCPs doing browser/smartphone automation.
But any accessibility tool will be exploited by nefarious actors so I wonder how many main stream websites/apps would implement these MCP.
Has anyone tried any MCP for improving accessibility?
Re: MCP-B: A Protocol for AI Browser Automation
#86I can see with my prophetic/logic eyes that free models will start to require captcha because of people start using MCP to automate browsers to use free LLMs. But captchas are ineffective against LLM so LLMs will fight automated LLMs from using them...
Sounds like a very strange world of robots fighting robots
Re: MCP-B: A Protocol for AI Browser Automation
#87Could all of this be replaced simply by publishing OpenAPI (Swagger) spec and using universal swagger mcp client ??? This basically leaves up to the user to establish authenticated session manually. Assuming claude is smart enough to pick up API key from prompt/config, and can use swagger based api client, wouldnt that be the same?
I found i can have Claude Code consume API just by giving it link to swagger.json in CLAUDE.md. it's very useful for adhoc testing.
Re: MCP-B: A Protocol for AI Browser Automation
#88Could all of this be replaced simply by publishing OpenAPI (Swagger) spec and using universal swagger mcp client ??? This basically leaves up to the user to establish authenticated session manually. Assuming claude is smart enough to pick up API key from prompt/config, and can use swagger based api client, wouldnt that be the same?
pls don't put an api key in a prompt
It may or may not be an issue. It's ok to give it API key for test/qa system but probably not for prod.
Re: MCP-B: A Protocol for AI Browser Automation
#89This MCP stuff is leading dev down the wrong path. We should be focusing on llms using self discovery to figure out information.
I had that opinion too. You can ask an agent to browse a web page and click a button etc. They will work out how to use a browser automation library. But it’s not worth the cost, time spent waiting or the inconsistency between implementations. MCP just offloads that overload, much like how they can use bash tools when they are quite capable of writing an implementation of grep etc.
The whole point is that you shouldn't have to worry about implementation. AI should do it for you.
Re: MCP-B: A Protocol for AI Browser Automation
#90So if I'm using claude code and developing a web app, its running on localhost:3000, can I use claude code to basically get ui information, browser console logs and other web dev feedback and useful information? Cause I installed it and added that file but all I see is the 55 tools and 6 apis when i open the browser extension. not the stuff i need. and i also installed the extension tools i think it was called.