dcc-mcp-autocad

AutoCAD adapter for the DCC Model Context Protocol ecosystem — typed DWG automation for agents, portable-first.

Why this adapter is different

dcc-mcp-autocad is the ecosystem's first portable-first adapter. Locating the host never depends on a registered COM ProgID, so green/portable installs work, and the headless accoreconsole.exe path keeps batch automation usable even where COM is unavailable.

Two interchangeable transports implement one contract:

The bridge negotiates the richest available transport at runtime and reports the resulting capability set.

Capability degradation

When only the headless transport is usable, these capabilities are unavailable and are declared by get_status rather than failing silently:

• no live document session — drawings open and save per operation
• no window handle — UI targeting is unavailable
• no interactive selection — pass typed entity arguments instead

Install

pip install dcc-mcp-autocad
# on Windows, for the interactive COM transport:
pip install "dcc-mcp-autocad[windows]"

Verify the host:

dcc-mcp-autocad-doctor doctor --json
dcc-mcp-autocad-doctor verify --json --transport accoreconsole

Working with drawings you already have: the adapter is deny-by-default — a path is accepted only when it normalizes to a path inside the configured workspace (by default the system temp directory) or inside one of the roots listed in DCC_MCP_AUTOCAD_ALLOWED_ROOTS, which may lie outside the workspace. Point it at your DWG archive before editing existing drawings — see Drawing workspace:

set DCC_MCP_AUTOCAD_WORKSPACE=C:\drawing-work
set DCC_MCP_AUTOCAD_ALLOWED_ROOTS=C:\Users\you\Documents

Host discovery

Resolution order — no step requires COM registration:

1. AUTOCAD_EXE environment variable
2. Registry install location
3. Known installation directories (C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD <year>)

accoreconsole.exe is resolved as a sibling of acad.exe. COM ProgIDs are an optional accelerator with a version-tolerant fallback chain (AutoCAD.Application.25.1 → 25 → 24.3 → unversioned), never a prerequisite.

Tools

The bundled autocad-drawings skill exposes:

• get_status — discovery, transport, and active capabilities
• inspect_drawing — bounded entity, layer, and layout metadata
• create_drawing — new DWG from a template
• manage_layers — ensure layers exist
• add_entities — append typed lines, circles, points, or text

Entity arguments are JSON data only; callers cannot supply source code.

Runtime shape

An external bridge host: the adapter's Python runs outside AutoCAD and drives it over the negotiated transport. AutoCAD ships no embedded Python at all, so the AutoCAD process imposes no constraint on the interpreter.

That is a statement about the host, not about this package. This package's own floor is requires-python = ">=3.9", and it is set under the ecosystem's standing host-side exception — the same one behind openusd >=3.9, photoshop >=3.8, and zbrush >=3.10. It is not a signal that the Python 3.7 floor held by dcc-mcp-core and the shared libraries has moved; it has not.

Host contract: the two sides

The adapter installs nothing into AutoCAD — no plug-in, no Autoloader bundle, no NETLOAD. Everything below describes the two sides of one boundary.

Host side (inside AutoCAD). AutoCAD ships no embedded Python and none is added. Nothing in this package executes inside the AutoCAD process; the adapter only drives it through AutoCAD's own automation surfaces (vanilla COM and AutoLISP over the core console). There is consequently no host-side Python to version-manage.

Bridge side (outside AutoCAD). The adapter's Python runs in its own interpreter and talks to AutoCAD over one of two transports:

Constraints that are real and load-bearing:

• accoreconsole.exe /s <script> does not work on AutoCAD 2026 — it hangs without running the script. The transport always pipes through stdin with CRLF line endings instead.
• COM is STA. The adapter initialises COM per thread and serialises host calls, which is why throughput is ~500 ops/s rather than per-call latency.
• Late binding only (win32com.client.dynamic.Dispatch). The makepy gen_py cache has been observed to be incomplete — IAcadLine was missing Color.
• Busy hosts are retried, bounded. Only RPC_E_CALL_REJECTED and RPC_E_SERVERCALL_RETRYLATER are retried, at most 30 times × 0.5 s. Any other HRESULT propagates on the first call.
• Vanilla COM surface only. No vertical (Architecture/Mechanical/Electrical) or OEM-specific API is referenced; a test fails the build if one appears.

Compatibility

Support is decided by a machine-readable matrix (compat_matrix.json) that ships inside the wheel, not by a flat "2021+" claim. The doctor reads the host's real ACADVER and reports the verdict for it.

Only AutoCAD 2026 has machine evidence behind it: out-of-process COM round-trips, LISP dispatch read back through USERR1, a 200-entity batch, a SaveAs → reopen cycle, and a headless accoreconsole.exe DWG cross-checked through COM. Every other row is declared so the doctor can name it, not because it passed anything.

An unverified build is refused by default. That is the point: a seat registering AutoCAD.Application.25 proves the ProgID binds, not that the contract passes. The doctor exits 11 with an error_code naming the verdict. To accept the risk on a specific machine:

set DCC_MCP_AUTOCAD_ALLOW_UNVERIFIED_HOST=1

The report then carries host.override_active: true, so the override is visible in the payload rather than hidden in the behaviour. An ACADVER that cannot be parsed at all is never overridable — there is no range to opt into.

Write verification

A mutating tool returns only after it has re-opened the DWG and read the change back from disk. create_drawing, add_entities, and manage_layers all do this on both transports; the in-memory document is not evidence, because it looks identical whether or not the save reached the file.

When a read-back disagrees the call raises an error that names the tool, the check, the expected value, the value actually read, and the host ACADVER — never a bare failure. Success carries verified: true.

Verification scope — read before quoting CI

No GitHub-hosted runner has AutoCAD installed or licensed, so CI never launches the host. A green CI run is contract-level evidence: import safety, transport contracts, capability logic, and the write-back contract above. It is not host-level evidence, and this project does not present it as such.

Host-level evidence comes from dcc-mcp-autocad-doctor verify --json on a machine with a licensed AutoCAD, or from the autocad-live CI job, which is written for a self-hosted runner and disabled by default. The doctor report states this bound itself, under verification.

License

MIT