SolidWorks Design Assistant

A Claude Code plugin that brings AI-assisted SolidWorks CAD design directly into your workflow, powered by a curated knowledge base of SolidWorks documentation, macros, standards, and design patterns.

Installation

Prerequisites: Claude Code v1.0.0 or newer.

Step 1 — Add the marketplace

In an open Claude Code session, register this repo as a plugin marketplace:

/plugin marketplace add Erfouni/solidworks-claude-plugin

Claude Code reads .claude-plugin/marketplace.json from the repo and registers a marketplace named solidworks-claude-plugin.

Step 2 — Install the plugin

/plugin install solidworks-claude-plugin@solidworks-claude-plugin

The format is <plugin-name>@<marketplace-name> — both happen to be solidworks-claude-plugin here. Confirm the install when prompted, then restart Claude Code (or run /plugin and reload) so the skills, agents, and hooks activate.

Tip: You can also browse and install interactively by running /plugin and selecting the marketplace from the menu.

Step 3 — Point at your own knowledge base (optional)

The plugin reads the knowledge base over plain HTTPS using curl. It is public — no API key or login required — and defaults to https://sw-plugin.ideep.org, so the plugin works out of the box.

If you host the knowledge base yourself, set the base URL in the plugin's configuration:

Setting	Default
SW_KB_HOST	https://sw-plugin.ideep.org

Every skill reads that one value, so changing it redirects all knowledge lookups and feedback submissions.

Step 4 — Verify

Run /plugin and confirm SolidWorks Design Assistant is listed and enabled. Start a SolidWorks task — the pre-start skill loads conventions and design rules before the first action, which confirms the plugin and knowledge base are wired up.

Updating & removing

# pull the latest plugin version
/plugin marketplace update solidworks-claude-plugin

# uninstall
/plugin uninstall solidworks-claude-plugin@solidworks-claude-plugin

How it works

Four skills run in order around a SolidWorks session:

Skill	When	What it does
pre-start	before any modelling	Loads conventions, all active design rules, and task-relevant knowledge documents; runs the design-rule checker against your parameters
kb-api	after pre-start	Looks up the catalog — category → part → its instructions, macros and known errors — so an existing design is reused rather than rebuilt
learner	throughout	Tracks instructions, every code block, errors and lessons as they happen
session-reporter	at the end	Asks consent, then submits the session to the knowledge base for review

The feedback loop

A session produces macros, instructions, known errors and lessons. Those are submitted as drafts and are not visible to anyone else until a reviewer approves them in the admin console, scopes them to a part (or to general knowledge), and publishes them. Published knowledge is then served back through this plugin, so the next session starts from it.

session-reporter also sends what it believes it built:

{
  "suggestedCategory":   "Yokes",
  "suggestedPartName":   "Cardan yoke, 30mm bore",
  "suggestedPartNumber": "YK-030"
}

These are hints for the reviewer, never decisions — nothing is published on their strength. The agent that built the component knows what it was asked for, so passing that forward saves the reviewer working it out from code and renders.

Knowledge base contents

Knowledge documents	conventions, playbooks, API references, strategies
Lessons	real failures and their prevention rules, from past sessions
Design rules	enforceable checks with severities (fastener, DFM, tolerance, assembly clearance)
Standards tables	materials, fasteners, fits, clearance holes, ISO 2768 tolerances, preferred numbers, sheet-metal gauges, GD&T symbols, surface finish
Catalog	parts and categories, with their published macros and instructions

Documents are in English and Persian; both carry the same engineering content.

Directory Structure

solidworks-claude-plugin/
├── .claude-plugin/
│   ├── plugin.json        # plugin metadata + SW_KB_HOST config
│   └── marketplace.json   # marketplace catalog
├── commands/              # slash commands (none yet)
├── agents/                # subagents
├── skills/                # the four skills above
├── hooks/                 # lifecycle hooks
├── docs/openapi.json      # knowledge base API reference
└── README.md

Not yet built

• Slash commands for common SolidWorks tasks (sketches, features, assemblies, drawings)
• An MCP server for the knowledge base. The plugin does not use MCP today — every skill calls the REST API with curl, and plugin.json declares "mcp": false. An MCP transport would be an addition, not a replacement.

License

MIT