Expanded Member Roles and Permissions

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Previously, group publisher memberships gave all-or-nothing access. Teams needed fine-grained control. Today, the Chrome Web Store dashboard offers three roles: admin, item manager, viewer. Admins onboard members. Item managers submit updates. Viewers review metrics. Inviting additional members bypasses developer registration and costs nothing. The feature is live now.

Enterprise Publishing for External Organizations

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External developers building enterprise extensions had two options: publish publicly or share via group policy. Both fragmented deployments. A new option lets developers generate an approval link for an enterprise admin of another domain. Once approved, the developer publishes across domains. Admins retain control over what gets published. The feature is already available.

Cross-Browser Support for Extensions

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Chrome now supports the browser global alongside the chrome global. Extensions using browser.tabs.create work across browsers. The runtime.onMessage API now accepts promises instead of the sendResponse callback. Chrome waits for the promise to resolve. Firefox and Safari already support this. Mozilla’s web extension polyfill deactivates in newer Chrome versions. Developers can migrate gradually.

AI Tooling: Skills and MCP Server

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Google published a skill for AI coding tools. The skill teaches agents the latest APIs, best practices, and Web Store submission requirements. It generates a .md file with permission justifications. In internal tests, models built many extensions from evaluation samples in a single prompt. Separately, the Chrome DevTools MCP server now debugs extensions. Agents can launch Chrome, install extensions, trigger actions, and inspect pop-ups, side panels, and service workers. A demo had the agent build a Hello World extension, install it, and verify the pop-up.

Notable Quotes

Over the last year, monthly developer registrations have more than doubled. Kevin Bay · ▶ Watch (1:17)

17% of all extensions that were created for the Chrome Web Store last year use AI. Kevin Bay · ▶ Watch (1:35)

Once the extension is built, the agent also automatically launches a fresh instance of Chrome, installs the extension, and clicks the action button to trigger the pop-up. Kevin Bay · ▶ Watch (12:15)

Remove the friction from your workflow so you can focus on what truly matters, building incredible experiences for your users. Kevin Bay · ▶ Watch (13:51)

Key Takeaways

  • Monthly developer registrations on Chrome Web Store more than doubled.
  • New dashboard roles allow fine-grained access without developer registration.
  • Chrome now supports the browser global and promise-based messaging for cross-browser extensions.