Autodesk Inventor plugin
MCP server and skill toolkit for Autodesk Inventor 2025+ add-in developers, packaged as a Claude Cowork / Claude Code plugin.
Repository: https://github.com/Cadtastic-Solutions/Autodesk-Inventor-MCP
This is the boilerplate scaffold. Per-feature capabilities (crash analysis, add-in management, project editor, task scheduler, reset, pack-and-go, read-only viewer, add-in scaffolding, crash trend dashboards) land on their own feature/inventor-* branches. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the branch model.
What ships on main
| Component | Description |
|---|
| MCP server skeleton | .NET 8 self-contained executable hosting the Inventor.Mcp.Server infrastructure: STA-pinned main thread, DI host, stderr-only logging, SessionTools (inventor_versions_list, inventor_session_start, inventor_session_adopt, inventor_session_list, inventor_session_terminate) |
| Shared infrastructure | InventorInstanceManager (3-tier COM lookup, ROT registration, health verification, reconnect-once), InventorInstallations + InventorBinaries (Inventor SDK + sibling-binary discovery), WindowsApi (source-gen P/Invoke) |
| Crash store | scripts/crash_store.py — SQLite shim shared between the diagnosis / trends features (those features ship on their own branches) |
| Plugin manifest | .claude-plugin/plugin.json advertising the plugin, .mcp.json pointing at the published exe |
| Documentation | Architecture, API, build, roadmap (docs/); feature-by-feature requirements (REQUIREMENTS.md); contribution workflow (CONTRIBUTING.md) |
MCP server architecture
+-----------------------------+ +------------------------+
| Claude (Cowork / Code) | stdio MCP | Inventor.Mcp.Server |
| | <==========> | .NET 8, [STAThread] |
| plugins/autodesk-inventor | | - SessionTools |
+-----------------------------+ +-----------+------------+
| COM
v
+------------------------+
| InventorInstanceMgr |
| - per-session GUID |
| - 3-tier COM lookup |
| (HWND / moniker / |
| ROT enumeration) |
| - health verification |
+-----------+------------+
| starts / adopts
v
+------------------------+
| Inventor.exe (PID 1) |
| Inventor.exe (PID 2) |
| ... |
+------------------------+
Mermaid versions and full sequence diagrams: see docs/ARCHITECTURE.md.
Install + build
-
Install the plugin in Cowork or Claude Code (drag autodesk-inventor.plugin onto the app or use the plugins UI).
-
On a Windows machine with .NET 8 SDK and Autodesk Inventor 2025+ installed:
cd <plugin root>\server
.\build.ps1
This runs dotnet publish -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained true and drops the self-contained exe at server\dist\Inventor.Mcp.Server.exe — the path .mcp.json points at.
-
Restart Cowork / Claude Code. The MCP server starts on first tool call.
Full build, packaging, and exclusion rules: see docs/BUILD.md.
The plugin distribution does NOT ship a prebuilt exe — Autodesk.Inventor.Interop.dll isn't redistributable, and the self-contained exe is ~70 MB. Build time on a modern machine is under 10 seconds.
Scope
- Inventor 2025+ (CoreCLR / .NET 8, CER service 7.2.x). Older Inventor (.NET Framework) is out of scope; see REQUIREMENTS.md §4.3 Constraints.
- MCP-first design — every feature wrapper leads with a typed MCP call; documented CLI / COM fallbacks let scripts still work when the server isn't running.
Layout
