Guides · WebMCP · Demo 1

A real session, bugs included

This is what actually happens when you call the Reg Z threshold calculator through WebMCP, the draft W3C API that lets a web page offer tools to AI agents. It does not work on the first try, and that is the point: this page is a complete session, every command, every error the browser throws, what each one means, and the cryptographic receipt at the end. Nothing cleaned up, because the debugging is the useful part.

WebMCP art-220 · Reg Z Threshold Lookup Deterministic · Hash-Receipted Draft W3C API
What happened, in order
  1. Fast path: run the working WebMCP demo first
  2. Launching Chrome with WebMCP enabled
  3. Opening DevTools and unlocking the console
  4. Error one: the API is not there at all
  5. Error two: the API moved
  6. Proving the fix with a probe tool
  7. The full call, and the receipt
  8. What changed on this site because of it

No prior experience with browser DevTools is assumed. Start with the working path below. The later sections preserve the original debugging record, including its two failures, so that a reader can identify and recover from the same problems. Every command is safe to paste repeatedly because it runs inside its own temporary scope.

Start here

Fast path: a successful WebMCP call

Use this section if you want to see WebMCP working before reading the debugging history. It takes about three minutes and uses only public, synthetic regulatory data.

Step 1

Launching Chrome with WebMCP enabled

WebMCP is new, so Chrome keeps it behind a feature switch. This has to be done once, from a fully closed Chrome.

Step 2

Opening DevTools and unlocking the console

Everything from here on happens in the browser's built-in developer console.

Step 3

Error one: the API is not there at all

Step 4

Error two: the API moved

Step 5

Proving the fix with a probe tool

Step 6

The full call, and the receipt

Step 7

What changed on this site because of it

The session found a live defect: the page registered its tool only on the deprecated surface, so current Chrome visitors got no tool at all. The fix is the pattern this site now ships:

const mc = document.modelContext ?? (("modelContext" in navigator) ? navigator.modelContext : null); if (mc) { mc.registerTool({ /* same tool object */ }); }

Try it yourself

Everything above is reproducible in about two minutes: launch Chrome with the flag (step 1), open the calculator, and paste the snippet from step 6. The registration is already done for you by the page. Compare the tier values with the form's output and check the hash.

The pattern here, one page serving humans through a form and agents through a tool with a shared receipt, is how every agent-callable calculator on this site works. WebMCP is a draft W3C specification; API names on this page reflect current Chrome behavior and may change again. Values shown are the pinned 2026 Reg Z table (FR 2025-22773); always verify at consumerfinance.gov before production compliance use.