AI / MCP integration

Serpentine3D ships an MCP server so AI assistants can drive the modeller: create geometry, run any command, inspect and screenshot the scene.

The in-app assistant builds real geometry in your scene and can see the viewport to check its own work.

Wiring it up

With the GUI running (it opens a local RPC bridge automatically), add to your MCP client config — e.g. Claude Code:

claude mcp add serpentine3d -- /path/to/.venv/bin/serp3d-mcp

or in claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "serpentine3d": { "command": "/path/to/.venv/bin/serp3d-mcp" }
  }
}

The MCP server finds the running GUI through ~/.serpentine3d/rpc.port.

What the assistant can do

The server exposes these tools:

• serp_create_curve, serp_create_surface, serp_boolean, serp_transform — direct geometry with exact parameters
• serp_command — run anything a user could type, with scripted answers to its prompts
• serp_scene_info, serp_measure, serp_screenshot — see the scene (the screenshot returns an image of the viewport)
• serp_select, serp_layers, serp_import, serp_export, serp_undo, serp_viewport — selection, layers, files and the camera

The combination of serp_screenshot and serp_command is what lets an assistant model alongside you: it sees what you see and can operate every tool the command line offers. Every mutation is undoable in the GUI, so you can step back through anything the assistant did.

In-app assistant

Prefer to stay inside the app? View → Assistant (or type ai) opens a chat panel that builds real geometry in your live scene — it uses the same command surface and can look at the viewport to check its own work. It needs an Anthropic API key (Settings → Assistant); the key never leaves your machine except to call the API.

The bridge

The running GUI opens a localhost-only JSON-RPC socket (~/.serpentine3d/rpc.port); the MCP server (serp3d-mcp) connects to it. Set SERP3D_NO_RPC=1 to disable it.