text-to-cad
text-to-cad is a library of agent skills for generating, inspecting, sourcing, slicing, and handing off CAD and robot-description artifacts from local project files.
CAD
|
URDF
|
SRDF / MoveIt2
|
🧰 Skills
Install the library to give agents focused workflows for CAD, fabrication, robot description files, simulation, and local review.
| Skill | Summary | Source |
|---|---|---|
| CAD | Creates and edits CAD models from plain-language or image requests, with STEP as the main output along with options to export to STL, 3MF and GLB. | skills/cad |
| step.parts | Finds off-the-shelf STEP parts like screws, bearings, motors, and connectors. | skills/step-parts |
| Engineering Drawing | Dimensioned engineering drawings from a part, as a PDF: views, hidden lines, dimensions, hole callouts, title block. | skills/engineering-drawing |
| DXF | Creates 2D DXF drawings like profiles, templates, gaskets, and cut layouts from Python sources or CAD geometry. | skills/dxf |
| URDF | Writes robot structure files with links, joints, limits, inertials, and meshes. | skills/urdf |
| SRDF | Adds MoveIt planning groups, end effectors, poses, and collision rules to a URDF. | skills/srdf |
| SDF | Creates simulator models and worlds with frames, physics, sensors, and lights. | skills/sdf |
| SendCutSend | Checks DXF and STEP files before upload to SendCutSend. | skills/sendcutsend |
| DfAM Check | Measures mesh printability per process: wall thickness, overhangs, support volume, and build orientation. | skills/dfam-check |
| DFM | Reviews a part for sheet metal, CNC machining, or injection molding, with measured evidence and the cited rule behind every finding; measures draft, undercuts and projected area from a mesh. | skills/dfm |
| G-code | Slices supported mesh files into validated, printer-profiled FDM .gcode with real slicer CLIs. |
skills/gcode |
| Bambu Labs | Dry-runs, uploads, and cautiously starts local Bambu Lab print jobs from validated .gcode. |
skills/bambu-labs |
💻 Installation
Install or clone from main: it is the source tree, and every skill's
requirements.txt pins the cadgen release it was published with. (models/,
the fixture corpus, arrives as small LFS pointers and is not needed to use the
skills.)
Skills
Install text-to-cad with the Skills CLI:
npx skills add earthtojake/text-to-cadThis is the preferred installation path. It installs the individual skills directly for supported agents.
Use the same command to update. add re-fetches the package and overwrites
what is already installed, so it both refreshes existing skills and installs any
skill added in a newer release. npx skills update only refreshes skills already
in your lockfile, so it silently misses new ones — which matters here, because
releases do add skills.
Neither command removes a skill that was retired upstream; drop one with
npx skills remove <skill> if you need to. The retired cad-viewer skill is
now covered by the CAD, DXF and robot-description skills; remove old standalone
installs with npx skills remove cad-viewer. For local development symlinks,
remove the old cad-viewer link manually: the install/uninstall scripts discover
only skills still present in the checkout.
(npx skills install … still works — it is an undocumented alias for add.)
Plugins
Provider-native plugin installs are also available for Codex, Claude Code, and Grok Build:
# Codex (requires Codex 0.142.0 or newer)
codex plugin marketplace add earthtojake/text-to-cad
codex plugin add text-to-cad@earthtojakeCodex resolves this repository-root plugin only from 0.142.0 onward. On older
versions the plugin is skipped silently and never appears in codex plugin list;
upgrade with npm install -g @openai/codex@latest.
In the Codex app the plugin also brings the CAD viewer: CAD in the sidebar
(recent models, and Open), a CAD tab beside each thread that the agent
drives, and Open with CAD for model files. It runs locally through
uv, which must be installed: after installing the plugin,
restart the app, and its first start downloads the pinned runtime. The plugin's
$cad-mcp-setup skill checks for uv and points you to its installer. To update, upgrade the earthtojake marketplace
(Plugins › Manage › Marketplace, or codex plugin marketplace upgrade earthtojake)
and restart the app: its first start downloads the new runtime. The marketplace was renamed from text-to-cad
to earthtojake; if you added it before, remove the old one first
(codex plugin marketplace remove text-to-cad).
# Claude Code
claude plugin marketplace add earthtojake/text-to-cad
claude plugin install text-to-cad@earthtojakeIn Claude Desktop, CAD shows models in the chat: ask Claude to show one and it
appears as a viewer card you can orbit, add to your prompt, and open full size;
Claude can read what you selected and see what you see. It runs locally through
uv: add the server to Claude Desktop's config
(Settings > Developer > Edit Config), then restart the app. If Claude Desktop
cannot find uvx, give its full path (which uvx). Each start runs the newest
release, so restarting the app updates it.
{
"mcpServers": {
"cad": { "command": "uvx", "args": ["--from", "cadgen", "cadgen", "mcp"] }
}
}Grok Build uses the existing .claude-plugin/marketplace.json; there is no
separate Grok plugin manifest.
# Grok Build
grok plugin install earthtojake/text-to-cad --trust
grok plugin enable text-to-cadRestart your agent if newly installed skills do not appear. For local
development, branch from main, open PRs against main, and follow
CONTRIBUTING.md.
Windows 11: Smart App Control
The CAD kernel behind the cad, dxf, urdf, srdf and sdf
skills is OCP, OpenCascade's Python binding, and its wheel ships an unsigned
native module. Windows 11's Smart App Control blocks unsigned native code, so
on a machine where it is on (the default on a fresh install) every cadgen
command and import build123d fails with
ImportError: DLL load failed while importing OCP, and Event Viewer records
the refusal as Event ID 3077 under CodeIntegrity › Operational. cadgen doctor
names this when it sees it.
Smart App Control has no per-app exception. Either turn it off (Settings › Privacy & security › Windows Security › App & browser control › Smart App Control settings; once off it can only be turned back on by reinstalling Windows) or run the CAD skills under WSL, where it does not apply. The wheel is built by the cadquery-ocp project, so signing it is not something this repository can do.
🛠️ Contributing
Branch from main and open PRs against main.
For local contribution workflow, skill linking, and validation guidance, see
CONTRIBUTING.md.
