// the find
earthtojake/text-to-cad
A collection of agent skills for CAD, robotics and hardware design
A skills library that lets AI coding agents (Claude Code, Codex) generate and manipulate CAD files via natural language. It wraps build123d/OpenCascade for geometry, and covers the full hardware workflow from STEP/STL generation through URDF/SDF robot descriptions, DXF cutting layouts, G-code slicing, and even direct Bambu Lab printer control. Aimed at hardware engineers and roboticists who want to drive CAD workflows from an AI agent rather than a GUI.
- Coverage of the actual hardware pipeline is unusually deep: STEP generation, URDF/SRDF/SDF robot files, DXF for laser/waterjet cutting, G-code slicing, and SendCutSend preflight checks all in one place rather than stitched together manually.
- The benchmark suite (10 progressively complex parts with orbit GIFs) gives you a concrete, visual way to evaluate output quality before trusting it with real geometry—most AI-CAD tools ship nothing comparable.
- Dual-stack architecture (Python cadpy for geometry kernel work, JS cadjs for browser rendering) is cleanly separated, and the test coverage across both is substantial given the project's age.
- Plugin manifests for both Claude Code and Codex mean installation is one command rather than manual prompt engineering, which actually matters for team adoption.
- The AI generation quality is entirely dependent on the underlying LLM's ability to emit correct build123d Python—there's no constraint solver or geometry repair step, so hallucinated boolean operations or bad fillet parameters will produce broken STEP files with no graceful fallback.
- The implicit CAD skill is explicitly flagged experimental and uses GLSL SDFs rendered in the browser, which sounds cool but can't export to manufacturable formats, making it a dead end for anything beyond visualization.
- Bambu Lab printer control over LAN is inherently risky and the 'cautiously starts' wording in the README is doing a lot of work—there's no mention of thermal runaway safeguards or what happens when the agent sends a malformed start command to a printer with a bed full of resin.
- The skills CLI (`npx skills install`) is a third-party tool not in this repo, so the install story has an external dependency with no obvious fallback documented if that service disappears.