Documentation

What installs on the workstation, what each of the six modes can and cannot change, how to phrase a request, what a drawing standard learns from, what a credit buys, and what to do when a run fails.

Start here

You want toGo to
Get CADABRA onto this machineInstall the add-in. 212 MB, administrator rights, SOLIDWORKS closed.
Send a first request and read the answerYour first prompt
Know what happens between typing and a feature appearingHow it works
Work out which mode to be in, or why one is grayed outAll six modes
Phrase a change so it resolves in one turnWriting prompts
Copy a request that already worksPrompt library
Send a photo, a PDF or a part with the promptAttachments
Rebuild a 2D print as a feature treeDrawing to CAD
Make drawings come out on your title block and your projectionDrawing standards
Tell CADABRA how your team modelsModeling rules
Diagnose a failed feature or a broken referenceDebug Mode, then SOLIDWORKS errors
Look up a message CADABRA printedError messages
Move your seat to a different workstationWorkstations
Add people, single sign-on, or directory syncTeam
See the allowance, the levels, and what a credit buysPlans and limits
Answer a security questionnaireData handling

The shape of the product

CADABRA is a SOLIDWORKS add-in with a task pane docked in the SOLIDWORKS window. It runs on SOLIDWORKS 2020 or later on 64-bit Windows 10 or later. The panel interface is served from disk, so only the API calls need the network. Requirements, hosts and ports are on install the add-in.

Modes

six modes, chosen from a pill in the composer that opens a menu: Ask, Plan, Agent, Drawings, Debug, Imagine. There is no keyboard shortcut and no mode setting in Settings. Only Agent and Drawings change the model. Ask, Plan, Debug and Imagine read the open document and answer; none of them edits. A mutating request in Ask returns "That would change your model. Switch to Agent mode to build or edit it."

Ask and Imagine runs on every plan including Free. Plan, Agent and Debug need a paid plan. Drawings needs Enterprise. A blocked mode stays visible in the menu and is disabled; sending in one does not call the service.

If a drawing is the active SOLIDWORKS document, every prompt is routed through Drawings Mode whatever the pill says. Without Drawings access the turn is refused with "Reviewing and editing drawings needs Drawings access."

Levels

You pick a level, never a model, from a second pill labeled "Level: Low" and so on. Free has Low only, so the picker is hidden. Student and Professional have Low, Medium, High, defaulting to Medium. Enterprise adds Max and uses it by default. Nothing routes automatically: a turn runs at the level you picked, or at your plan default. If your plan drops below your saved level, the plan default is used silently.

Credits

Usage is metered in credits, drawn down per completion, so an Ask question costs a fraction of an Agent edit and a drawing set costs most. Unused credits do not roll over.

  • Free, 700K credits a month
  • Student, 3.5M credits a month
  • Professional, 10M credits a month
  • Enterprise, custom

Over the allowance the service answers 429, and the line on screen names your plan and ends "Resets {date}." The quota is checked before the turn and again before each model call, so a long run can stop part-way. Plans and limits has the reset behavior and the extra-usage rules.

What CADABRA does to your document

The add-in calls native SOLIDWORKS operations through the COM API: sketching, features, Hole Wizard, patterns, mates, feature-tree edits, materials, configurations, equations and export. When no native operation matches, Agent Mode falls back to generated VBA, and only then. Read-only modes are never given the VBA tool.

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