cad-viewer

CAD Viewer

Provenance: maintained in earthtojake/text-to-cad. Use the installed local skill files as the runtime source of truth; the repository link is only for provenance and release review.

Use this skill to open existing or newly generated CAD, implicit CAD, robot-description, DXF, or plain FDM G-code files in CAD Viewer and hand back live review links. The expected input is one or more explicit file paths.

Start Viewer

Start or reuse one local CAD Viewer with npm run agent:start, passing the absolute artifact directory as --dir. The agent:start launcher owns port selection, compatible-server reuse, directory activation, and the ?dir= query parameter. It activates reused servers through the Viewer's lightweight directory activation API, without requiring agents to probe ports or trigger catalog scans manually. Use the Viewer URL printed by agent:start as-is, then add only a file= query value for the artifact you want to review.

Choose --dir as the absolute directory that contains the model artifacts and sidecars, commonly <repo>/models or the consuming project's equivalent model directory. The file= value must be relative to that --dir. Do not manually choose ports, probe servers, rewrite ?dir=, or start a separate Viewer just to change directories.

Always start new local Viewer servers with --shutdown-after 12h so forgotten review servers clean themselves up. Do not rely on a default shutdown; the server stays alive until stopped unless this flag or VIEWER_SERVER_LIFETIME_MS is set.

Run from this skill directory:

npm --prefix scripts/viewer run agent:start -- --host 127.0.0.1 --dir <absolute-model-root> --shutdown-after 12h

Use the printed Viewer URL and append file=:

http://127.0.0.1:<printed-port>/?dir=/absolute/project/models&file=path/to/model.step

If a non-Viewer process or another worktree's Viewer occupies the candidate port, the launcher will continue automatically. In sandboxed agent environments, local binding or probe failures such as EPERM or EACCES can be expected; rerun the same command with the needed permission/escalation.

Links

• Return one Viewer URL per requested file.
• Start/reuse the Viewer once per absolute directory --dir, then append file=<path> for each requested file. The file path must be relative to --dir.
• For directory-only review links, return the URL printed by agent:start without adding file=.
• Do not stop an existing Viewer server unless the user asks.
• If Viewer startup fails, report the failure and continue with the owning skill's non-GUI validation or artifacts.

References

• Read references/development.md when the user asks to modify, debug, or iterate on CAD Viewer source.
• Read references/viewer-features.md when you need supported file types, Viewer controls, or file-specific feature details.
• Read references/moveit2-server.md only when the user specifically needs optional SRDF MoveIt2 IK or path-planning controls.