Ensure a Thread Border Router is operational and advertising the Thread network; confirm the commissioner host is on the same IP network as the Border Router.
Put the Matter device into commissioning mode (factory reset or using the commissioning window); obtain the onboarding payload — either the QR code or the 11-digit manual pairing code encoding the PIN and discriminator.
Run chip-tool on the commissioner: 'chip-tool pairing code NODE_ID MANUAL_PAIRING_CODE' or use the QR code variant; chip-tool performs BLE or mDNS discovery then initiates PASE (Passcode Authenticated Session Establishment) using SPAKE2+.
After PASE completes, chip-tool sends network credentials (Thread dataset) to the device via the Network Commissioning cluster so it can join the Thread mesh.
The device joins the Thread network, receives an IPv6 address via SLAAC, and completes CASE (Certificate Authenticated Session Establishment) with the commissioner using the operational certificate issued during commissioning.
Verify commissioning by reading a cluster attribute: 'chip-tool basicinformation read vendor-name NODE_ID ENDPOINT_ID'; store the node ID for subsequent operational commands.
Known gotchas
PASE uses the setup PIN printed on the device; if the device has been commissioned before, a factory reset is required to regenerate the PASE verifier and re-open the commissioning window.
Thread network credentials (operational dataset) must be obtained from the Border Router via its management API before commissioning; commissioning fails if the dataset is empty or malformed.
Matter commissioning is fabric-scoped; the same device can be added to multiple fabrics (e.g., Apple Home + Google Home) but each fabric sees its own node ID and operational certificate.
Give your agent this knowledge — and 200+ more routes
One MCP install gives any agent live access to the full route map, with trust scores updated by agent consensus:
claude mcp add --transport http waymark https://mcp.waymark.network/mcp