In-builder chat wired to MCP

[vianmora]

Hello 😊

Now that the mcp is out and fonctionnal (big thanks !), there was an earlier attempt at an in-builder chat (on instance selection, but it wasn't very functional, so you deleted it

Problem

Today, driving a Webstudio project via MCP requires an external client (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.) manually configured with .mcp.json. There is no way to chat with an AI directly from the builder UI to act on the currently open project (ask a question, request a change, check accessibility, etc.) without leaving the tool.

Proposal

Add a chat panel in the builder that calls the project's internal MCP server, with two configuration modes in Settings:

1. BYO model: the user provides a server URL (compatible endpoint, e.g. OpenAI-like or Anthropic-like) + an API token. Lets you plug in a self-hosted model or any external provider of your choice.
2. Official Webstudio AI: purchase tokens/credits managed by Webstudio, with zero configuration as you propose for inception. In both cases, the chat uses the same MCP tools already exposed to external clients.

What do you think ? 😊

Links

• AI based integrations #4869
• MCP roadmap #5989

[kof]

We thought about it, though this needs to be thought deeply in terms of monetization. Things local mcp can do won't be easily possible. Local MCP can start a browser, make screenshots to see what's going on, it can build the site etc. Giving a user a vm on a $20 plan is not viable. MCP with CLI isn't just some API wrapper, that's why it works well and will work even better. Investing time into a cloud solution for this is non trivial thing to do. Adding a basic chat that would be an API wrapper would be basically a completely different AI product and would diverge our efforts, so I am holding off on this for unknown amount of time.

[kof]

Additionally there will be a cost question, API is waay more expensive than subsidised subscriptions, which you can use locally.

[kof]

manually configured with .mcp.json.

No need to do that. You can just tell the AI client to install webstudio cli and use mcp. Nothing else is needed.

[kof]

What needs to be improved next is to see the changes made via mcp immediately and be able to select things on canvas or even comment things on canvas.

[vianmora]

Yes, I understand :/ You’re right :)