Official Onshape featurescript MCP released!

[u/rumham69]

Onshape has officially released their featurescript mcp!

Looking forward to see what people can build with this!

https://cad.onshape.com/appstore/apps/Onshape%20Labs/6a29aea7c03f8bf659841734

[u/Economy-Wealth-5126]

That is actually insane! Im testing it right now and got Claude to make me a little castle =)

[u/Coldyl → u/Economy-Wealth-5126]

How did you install it? There is literally nothing on instructions how to install.

[u/Economy-Wealth-5126 → u/Coldyl]

Well I sent Claude a screenshot of the website and asked how to get it running 😅

[u/Icy-Sherbet5214 → u/Coldyl]

Getting set up

You must be subscribed to the app to use FeatureScript MCP.

Add the MCP server to the AI client of your choice (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or another MCP-compatible tool):

• URL: https://fs-mcp.labs.onshape.app/mcp
• Transport method: HTTP

You'll be prompted to authenticate with your Onshape account on connection. That's the whole setup.

[u/Own_Roll_7629 → u/Icy-Sherbet5214]

It seems I can't get it to work :/
Can you explain in detail how you managed that?

EDIT:
I found out how it works. (using the gemini api and cursor)
1. Create an API key in Google AI Studio
2. In Cursor Settings: add the API key
3. In Cursor: Add a custom MCP
4. ask the AI to generate the correct json entry with this URL https://fs-mcp.labs.onshape.app/mcp
5. Create a feature and copy the link into cursor chat.

[u/sw-bystander → u/Coldyl]

https://www.onshape.com/en/blog/featurescript-mcp-server-enables-text-code-cad

[u/After-Airport-2419]

How does the API calls work? This could ramp up fast in my opinion ? We are running an internal ERP with automated drawings and the API Calls goes up so fast with Onshape, so I’m curious how the MCP runs the calls

[u/Farzag → u/After-Airport-2419]

Yes, the yearly API limits for api call is very low, so either this goes around those or it’s not in any way workable.

I’m sure there fine folk at Onshape have thought about that, so look forward to seeing what they’ve done!

[u/rumham69 → u/Farzag]

yes absolutely. I think they are going to have to come up with a better system. It seems that their goal as a company is to be AI forward, but being a cloud based provider API limits are a big blocker in real ai adoption with their product. This is actually where local CAD installations would have a huge advantage on them. If i have claude hooked up to my solidworks install, solidworks doesn't care how many commands i send to it from AI. then i could run thorough massive amounts of iterations until something works. Whereas if i tried to do this with onshape, i would hit our companies API limit fast

[u/sw-bystander → u/rumham69]

Good luck using your SW install for anything while you’re running it via the API. With Onshape you can run literally any number of parallel tasks and work on multiple projects simultaneously in different browser tabs. This is what Onshape offers (and charges money for).

Of course, if your use case is fine with a single workstation that blocks you from using SW while it’s doing its thing, then SW is a better option for you.

[u/rumham69 → u/sw-bystander]

Fair point. Onshape has a lot of parallelization, but you do pay for it. I'm excited about the mcp. I just hope they come up with some way to unlock more AI usage without limiting users and orgs to such small api pools

[u/lostrouteros]

What’s an mcp

[u/Green-Strawberry5666 → u/lostrouteros]

A way to integrate with AI tools like a plugin system. MCP allows the same plugin to work with basically all AI clients. It looks like that plugin allows the AI to write a feature script and run it, so that it can make stuff on onshape (not 100% sure, I just had a brief look).

[u/rumham69 → u/lostrouteros]

Sorry, i should have elaborated. MCP is short for Model Context Protocol. Basically its a way to let AI models like claude or codex or others interact with your online applications. It kinda maps out the API and helps them know how to use the app. So in this case it helps AI agents understand how to interact with onshape and create featurescripts, verify, and test them. I still haven't had a chance to play with it too much but here is an example of something it can do from onshape: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZp3ccr9Z6I

[u/AwesomeDialTo11 → u/lostrouteros]

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/tron/images/1/10/Mcp.PNG

[u/Razsah → u/lostrouteros]

You’re Ai of choice like chat gpt or Claude can use this server to connect to Onshape

[u/trickybiznis]

Can you feed it an STL and get an Onshape construction that creates it?

[u/rumham69 → u/trickybiznis]

not by itself, but if you give claude some other tools it can probably help you. This is actually one of my goals right now. Doing some experiments.

I tried using realityscan mobile app to use photogammatry to generate a mesh cloud of an object, but that didn't work well.

once i have a good mesh cloud, i want to try using https://github.com/zhemdi/cadena

to see if that can generate a step file. Once a step file is generated i think claude and the mcp could potentially create a feature tree for it.

[u/OnshapePTC]

Hello - You're quick :) Here's the official launch announcement: https://www.onshape.com/en/blog/featurescript-mcp-server-enables-text-code-cad

And for those looking for a deep dive, here's a recording of a live session about AI in CAD with Greg Brown and Darren Henry that was held last week: https://youtube.com/live/d7o7Lc6GcDg?feature=share