Show HN: OpenSCAD Studio – AI-assisted OpenSCAD editor (macOS alpha)

3 weeks ago 1

A modern cross-platform OpenSCAD editor with live preview and AI copilot

⚠️ Early Alpha Software This project is in early alpha and has only been tested on macOS. Windows and Linux support is planned but not yet implemented or tested.

As a software engineer and maker hobbyist, I love OpenSCAD. It allows for precision and maps to my mental model of building things. However, some operations (like rounding with minkowski) are not very intuitive. At work, I often use Cursor and Claude Code for writing code, and found myself plugging my OpenSCAD code into ChatGPT in order to either (1) scaffold out a starting point or (2) fix a confusing issue in my code. I also became frustrated by certain limitations of the OpenSCAD editor, like not being able to easily indent code with the editor commands I'm used to. So I built OpenSCAD Studio, which aims to be something like a Cursor for the language.

🤖 AI copilot - Chat with Claude/GPT to generate and fix code (bring your own API key)
🎨 Modern editor - OpenSCAD syntax highlighting, multi-tab editing, format on save
🖼️ Live 3D preview - Interactive mesh viewer with orbit controls and content-hash caching
📐 2D mode - Dedicated SVG viewer for laser cutting and engraving
🔍 Real-time diagnostics - Inline error markers with line/column precision

Limitations: No special operators (!, #, %, *) or customizer support yet

The opescad cli binary must be installed and available in your PATH. You can install via package manager:

macOS: brew install openscad
Ubuntu: sudo apt install openscad
Windows: Download installer from website

For development, you'll need:
- Node.js 18+ and pnpm
- Rust toolchain (for building Tauri backend)
  curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

# Install dependencies pnpm install # Run in development mode (with hot reload) pnpm tauri:dev # Build for production pnpm tauri:build

The built application will be in apps/ui/src-tauri/target/release/bundle/.

openscad-studio/ ├── apps/ │ ├── ui/ # React + Vite frontend │ │ ├── src/ │ │ │ ├── api/ # Tauri IPC wrappers │ │ │ ├── components/ # React components │ │ │ ├── hooks/ # Custom React hooks (useOpenScad, useAiAgent) │ │ │ ├── stores/ # State management │ │ │ └── themes/ # Theme definitions │ │ └── src-tauri/ # Rust backend │ │ ├── src/ │ │ │ ├── cmd/ # Tauri commands (render, AI tools) │ │ │ └── utils/ # OpenSCAD parser, caching │ │ └── Cargo.toml │ └── sidecar/ # AI Agent sidecar (Node.js) │ └── src/ │ └── agent-server.ts # Vercel AI SDK + tools └── packages/ └── shared/ # Shared TypeScript types (Zod schemas)

The AI copilot uses a secure sidecar architecture with API keys stored in your OS keychain.

Open Settings (⌘,)
Navigate to "AI" tab
Enter your Anthropic / OpenAI API key
Key is securely stored in macOS Keychain / Windows Credential Manager / Linux Secret Service

Supported Providers:

Anthropic
OpenAI

The AI can:

View your current code and preview
Make targeted code changes with exact string replacement
Check for compilation errors
All edits are validated and test-compiled before acceptance

CLAUDE.md - Comprehensive guide for AI assistants and contributors
AGENTS.md - AI agent architecture and tool definitions
ROADMAP.md - Detailed development roadmap with phases

✅ Phase 1-2 (Completed): Monaco editor, live preview, 3D viewer, export, caching
🚧 Phase 3 (In Progress): AI copilot with sidecar architecture
🔜 Phase 4 (Planned): Multi-file projects, testing, distribution

See ROADMAP.md for detailed breakdown.

Contributions are welcome! Please: