# cad-agent

> Your one stop shop for agentic CAD. Mapping the best free resources, demonstrating their capabilities, and filling the gaps. Made for AI and people.

cad-agent is an open-source toolkit and knowledge base for AI agents that design hardware: CAD models, assemblies,
simulation and print releases. It maps the best free tools, demonstrates them on real projects and fills the gaps with
tested tools of its own. Every page on this site has a Markdown twin at the same path with a .md extension.

- Source: https://github.com/Valpatel/cad-agent (MIT). Install: `pip install -e .` in a checkout; agent skills: `cad-agent agents install`.
- Machine-readable catalogue: https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/catalog.json (schema cad-agent-catalog/1; 144 entries).
- Full text of every page in one file: https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/llms-full.txt
- Built from commit 00fec7920dd433074cdd7d6005f2cd0d6c21315f.

## Start here

- [README](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/README.md): what cad-agent is and how it grows
- [Toolkit](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/docs/toolkit.md): every command, the project contract and the Python API
- [Agent workflow](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/docs/agent-workflow.md): skills, subagents, work claims and crash-safe work
- [Common issues](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/docs/common-issues.md): recurring CAD mistakes and the checks that catch them
- [Landscape](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/research/landscape.md): the agentic-CAD tools we track, verified

## Docs

- [Contributing](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/CONTRIBUTING.md): Several projects build on cad-agent at the same time (the J501 enclosure, Gyropup, the AGX Thor CAN boards, and others), often with AI agents working in parallel.
- [cad-agent](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/README.md): Hardware design with AI agents, checked like engineering. cad-agent turns a folder of CAD scripts into a repeatable pipeline: build the parts, check the fit, simulate strength and airflow, and publish
- [Third-party notices](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md): Code under vendor/ is copied from the projects below at the pinned commit. Each directory keeps its upstream LICENSE/NOTICE files; those terms apply to that code. Our changes are listed as patches in 
- [Agent workflow: skills, subagents and work that survives a crash](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/docs/agent-workflow.md): cad-agent projects are mostly built by AI agents (Claude Code, Codex) working with a person. The way that work is done (where it is recorded, how it is reviewed, where heavy runs go) is part of cad-ag
- [Common issues in CAD design reviews](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/docs/common-issues.md): These mistakes recur in printed parts and assemblies. The list comes from real projects, and each entry links the lesson that recorded it. Every review walks this list, whoever wrote the design and ho
- [Snap fits and compliant features](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/docs/compliant.md): cadagent.compliant sizes and checks snap-fit joints so an agent does not re-derive the equations, guess a permissible strain or forget layer lines. It is the calculator half of the compliant-mechanism
- [Design process plan: dossier, integrity gates and section-by-section review](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/docs/design-process-plan.md): Status: plan, 2026-10-27. Research behind it: research/design-workflows.md (cited below as DW §n). Nothing here is implemented yet; tasks T1–T20 at the end are sized for one implementer each.
- [The design dossier](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/docs/dossier.md): The dossier records a design the way a design review needs it: requirements, the sections the design is broken into, a spec card for every part, the interfaces between parts and sections, the decision
- [Explore and compare designs (cadagent.explore)](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/docs/explore.md): For any product built from bought and made parts (an enclosure, a robot, a board, a jig): pick parts from a catalogue for each slot of a design, evaluate every design with the project's own model, and
- [Viewing original CAD files](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/docs/file-viewer.md): The standalone webkit/file-viewer.html opens original STL, STEP/STP and core 3MF files. It parses the requested file itself; it never substitutes a similarly named STL or an assembly manifest. The dow
- [Integrity gates (cadagent.gates)](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/docs/gates.md): Assembly-level checks computed from the CAD model, each written as one verdict file. They answer what per-part checks cannot: is this part touching the one it should be fastened to, is the ball inside
- [PCB and assembly review workflow](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/docs/pcb.md): cad-agent supports electronics and mechanical evidence in the same local project site. KiCad remains the electrical source of truth; cad-agent consumes its native reports and displays the files.
- [Rendered joint motion validation](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/docs/rendered-motion.md): The maintained trace protocol ships with the cad-motion-validation skill, including when the workflow installer copies the skill to a different machine.
- [The section review packet (cadagent.render.review_packet)](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/docs/review-packet.md): A fixed set of captioned renders of one dossier section, with the measurements that come first: the gate verdicts and findings for the section, their witness points, the content hash of every part sho
- [Rigid subassembly insertion](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/docs/subassembly-insertion.md): A preassembled module needs two separately checked sequences: its internal bench assembly and its insertion into the parent.
- [cad-agent toolkit: verification and review reports for 3D-printed CAD projects](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/docs/toolkit.md): cad-agent runs a CAD project's build and checks, verifies its print files, and turns the results into a standalone HTML report and a review package. It is generic. The geometry and the design-specific
- [Curved-solid volume precision](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/docs/volume-precision.md): Tracking: issue #70. This investigation concerns numerical volume measurement in the generic relation gate. It does not qualify hardware fit or weaken collision/volume-conservation tolerances.
- [Mermaid diagrams in published documents](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/docs/web-diagrams.md): webkit/diagrams.js exports renderDiagrams(root=document) and observeDiagrams(root=document.body). The observer renders existing and subsequently inserted pre > code.language-mermaid and pre.mermaid bl
- [Shared parts browser and build tracking](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/docs/web-parts.md): Shared modules for issue 62. The table/tracker implementation is available on the feature branch; the original-file viewer is being implemented alongside it.

## Skills

- [cad-motion-validation](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/skills/cad-motion-validation/SKILL.md): Use when implementing or reviewing articulated CAD viewers and robot simulations, especially parts orbiting away from shafts, mismatched units or frames, nested joints, and stationary housings that ro
- [cad-pr-review](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/skills/cad-pr-review/SKILL.md): Use when a pull request in a cad-agent or product repo is ready for review, or when asked to review one. The author gets an independent review from a separate agent (the cad-pr-reviewer subagent, or a
- [cad-remote-runs](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/skills/cad-remote-runs/SKILL.md): Use before starting any CAD/FEA/CFD/topology run or full pipeline that takes more than a few minutes or several GB of memory. Run it on a compute host instead of the workstation the agents share, deta
- [cad-work-tracking](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/skills/cad-work-tracking/SKILL.md): Use at the start of any multi-step change in a cad-agent or product repo, and every ~30 minutes while working. Keeps work recoverable when the session ends (tokens run out, the host crashes or is refo
- [design-process](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/skills/design-process/SKILL.md): Use when building or changing a mechanical design with cad-agent (an enclosure, a robot, a mechanism, any assembly). Work section by section: frame each section with its requirements and interfaces be
- [mcmaster-parts](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/skills/mcmaster-parts/SKILL.md): Use for any bought hardware in a CAD design (bearings, screws, nuts, washers, heat-set inserts, dowel and shoulder pins, standoffs and spacers, rod ends, threaded rod, grommets). Always choose a real 

## Subagents

- [cad-pr-reviewer](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/agents/cad-pr-reviewer.md): Independent reviewer for a pull request in a cad-agent or CAD product repo (code, CAD geometry, simulation evidence, docs). Give it the PR URL and a checkout of the branch; it reads the diff, verifies
- [cad-resume](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/agents/cad-resume.md): Rebuilds the state of interrupted work from GitHub and the local and remote checkouts after a session ended (tokens ran out, crash, new computer) and reports what is done, what is in flight and the ne

## Lessons (pitfalls)

- [01 — Verify from source](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/lessons/01-verify-from-source.md): Board facts that the design depends on (connector side, voltages, designators, threads, which button is which) must come from a primary source: the schematic, datasheet photos or the vendor's 3D model
- [02 — User intent and requirements](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/lessons/02-user-intent-and-requirements.md): The requirements arrived in pieces, often as short mid-turn messages, and were refined by later corrections. What worked: capture each one in the user's own words, turn it into a named feature or chec
- [03 — Mechanical design rules](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/lessons/03-mechanical-design-rules.md): These rules come from printed-enclosure work (FDM, Bambu P1S bed) around a real carrier board.
- [04 — Fasteners and assembly access](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/lessons/04-fasteners-and-assembly-access.md): Bought hardware (screws, nuts, washers, inserts, pins, bearings, standoffs, rod ends) is chosen and placed with skills/mcmaster-parts: a real McMaster-Carr part number, its STEP model normalised into 
- [05 — Cables, connectors and routing](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/lessons/05-cables-connectors-and-routing.md): Model every mating connector, place it on the measured axis, and derive the window from it (standard practice); Route cables from the connector's real mating direction; Model plug bodies and a straigh
- [06 — Enclosure features](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/lessons/06-enclosure-features.md): Put antenna bulkheads in the part that never comes off; Give recessed buttons a pin hole and a guide sleeve that clears installation; Build storage trays from the drive specs and make them stack in an
- [07 — Verification and evidence](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/lessons/07-verification-and-evidence.md): Collision-check everything and investigate every hit; Classify false positives explicitly; don't silence them; Check motions, not just final positions; Never claim what was not tested, and make the ch
- [08 — Review site UX](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/lessons/08-review-site-ux.md): The user reviewed the work almost entirely through a locally served preview page. Each request below came from something they could not see or could not act on.
- [09 — Agent process](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/lessons/09-agent-process.md): Fold mid-turn messages into the current work and report on each; Give short status during long work, and say what is stale; Ask before outward or irreversible actions; Check whether it already exists 
- [10 — Simulation, material and airflow](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/lessons/10-simulation-and-material.md): Identify the exact bought part before sizing anything around it; Judge material savings on slicer grams, not CAD volume; A thinner shell must be re-checked under load, and the check must catch it; The
- [11 — PCB evidence, enclosure readback and release packaging](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/lessons/11-pcb-evidence-and-review.md): Distilled from the incident notes of a second project: a two- and four-port CAN breakout PCB with a printed housing, designed with KiCad 10 and cad-agent on 2026-10-26 (repository mvalancy/pcb-agx-tho
- [Original-file previews](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/lessons/12-original-file-viewer.md): Parse the requested original and preserve its identity during recovery; Verify bundled parser behavior rather than assuming a newer API; Check the distributed wheel, including dependency notices.
- [Lessons from the J501 enclosure session](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/lessons/README.md): Lessons for an AI hardware-design agent, mined from one Claude Code session: the J501 AGX enclosure design session (session d8e464a0-f4a5-4edd-9190-6fd66a0508b0, 2026-10-24 to 2026-10-25).

## Research

- [Agent toolkits for mechanical CAD, DFM/DFA and FEA: refresh since 2026-10-24 (checked 2026-10-31)](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/research/agent-toolkits-2026-10.md): For Valpatel/cad-agent #96 (landscape refresh) and #94 (compliant-mechanism engineer). Extends research/landscape.md (2026-10-24); it does not repeat the KiCad or benchmark sections.
- [Compliant mechanisms and single-part joints: references, equations, allowables, process effects (2026-10-31)](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/research/compliant-mechanisms.md): For Valpatel/cad-agent #94 (compliant-mechanism engineer), #95 (calculators), #97 (pitfalls), #99 (process profiles). Extends research/landscape.md (2026-10-24) and research/simulation-tools.md (2026-
- [Design workflows for CAD agents: what works, with evidence (verified 2026-10-27)](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/research/design-workflows.md): Scope: how the best agentic CAD systems, professional mechanical-design practice and model-integrity verification can be turned into a process that a CAD agent executes. landscape.md covers tool featu
- [FOSS large-deflection + contact FEA, orientation, sheet metal and DFM checklists (2026-10-31)](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/research/fea-and-process-tools.md): For Valpatel/cad-agent #96 (items 3–5), #94 (FEA step), #97 (pitfall catalogue), #99 (process profiles). Extends research/simulation-tools.md (2026-10-26), which covers topology optimisation, CFD/CHT,
- [Agentic hardware-design landscape (verified 2026-10-24)](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/research/landscape.md): Scope: public tools that let frontier-model agents (Claude Code first; Codex, Cursor, Gemini) design 3D-printed, sheet-metal, laser-cut, CNC and molded parts, enclosures around real PCBs, and KiCad bo
- [FOSS simulation and optimisation survey for cad-agent (J501 / AGX Orin enclosure)](https://cad-agent.valpatel.com/research/simulation-tools.md): Survey date: 2026-10-26. Licences were checked against each repo's LICENSE/COPYING file (GitHub API or GitLab API) unless marked otherwise. "Last commit" means the newest commit on the default branch 

## Commands

- `cad-agent build`: Run the configured build steps in order
- `cad-agent export-3mf`: Write a bed-centred 3MF per part STL and verify it
- `cad-agent holes`: Check every hole of every part (exports/<part>.step) is clear of material: ribs or bosses added after the holes
- `cad-agent check`: Collect check results; exit 1 if any fail
- `cad-agent report`: Write results JSON + standalone HTML report
- `cad-agent package`: Zip the review package with a sha256 manifest
- `cad-agent release`: Write the print release: a browsable page of the parts (thumbnails, print settings) with CAD files and source, and a zip
- `cad-agent serve`: Serve the project over http (Bambu Studio links)
- `cad-agent site`: Build the project site (progress, designs, decisions, docs)
- `cad-agent view`: Export every part in assembly position for the 3D viewer
- `cad-agent slice`: Slice each part's 3MF (Bambu Studio CLI): grams and print time
- `cad-agent webkit`: Copy the web kit (3D stage, viewer, HUD) into the project
- `cad-agent pcb-check`: Bind KiCad ERC/DRC evidence to current PCB sources
- `cad-agent all`: build, export-3mf, holes, gates and the dossier lint (when configured), check + report, package
- `cad-agent motion-trace`: Validate rendered joint pivots against independent CAD landmarks
- `cad-agent snapfit`: Size and check snap fits declared in a YAML/JSON file (docs/compliant.md)
- `cad-agent agents`: Install the agent workflow kit (skills and subagents) for Claude Code and Codex, or list what is installed (docs/agent-workflow.md)
- `cad-agent mcmaster`: Download McMaster-Carr STEP + product data per part number and normalise it (one page at a time; skills/mcmaster-parts/SKILL.md)
- `cad-agent catalogue`: Check the part catalogue and the designs against it (cad: explore:, docs/explore.md)
- `cad-agent compare`: Evaluate the designs and rank them: comparison JSON, HTML page, site design cards
- `cad-agent optimise`: Search slots and parameters for the best trade-offs (cad: explore: search:)
- `cad-agent dossier`: Lint the design dossier and write each item's status (exports/dossier-status.json)
- `cad-agent gates`: Run the integrity gates on the dossier geometry: exports/gates/<gate>.json + .md
- `cad-agent review-packet`: Render each dossier section's review packet: exports/review/<section>/ + manifest.json
- `cad-agent review-section`: Reviewer pass: write a section's reviewer bundle, or --submit a reviewer record