AI assistants (MCP)

An AI assistant such as Claude can work in Chipload for you. You describe the part (“cut the outline out of 12 mm plywood with four tabs, and pocket the slots 4 mm deep”), and the assistant makes the project, sets up the operations, checks them, plans and simulates them, and writes the G-code when you ask.

It does this through chipload mcp, a server for the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which assistants use to call programs’ tools. (Design: docs/specs/mcp.md.)

Setting it up

The assistant starts chipload mcp itself and talks to it over its input and output. Nothing listens on the network.

Claude Code: in your project’s folder, run
```
claude mcp add chipload -- chipload mcp
```
Give the full path to chipload if it isn’t on your PATH. Paths the assistant uses are relative to the folder Claude Code runs in.
Claude Desktop and other MCP clients: add a server whose command is chipload with the argument mcp. In Claude Desktop’s claude_desktop_config.json:
```
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "chipload": { "command": "/path/to/chipload", "args": ["mcp"] }
  }
}
```
On Windows, the command is the full path to chipload.exe, from chipload-cli-X.Y.Z-windows-x86_64.zip. Ask the assistant to use full paths to your files there, as it has no project folder.

What the assistant can do

Every command is a tool with the same options, apart from mcp, reference and render. Each tool gives the same JSON as the command with --json. So the assistant:

imports DXFs and pictures, and places them;
reads and changes any value with get and set (an operation is added by setting a whole one);
reads the project’s problems with their paths, and fixes them;
plans and simulates. With an output picture, simulate also shows the assistant the cut stock;
writes G-code with run, which, as always, writes only programs that pass the checker.

Tools that only read (inspect, plan, get, check-project, the lists…) are marked so, and your assistant may run them without asking you. For the others, it may ask first.

Safety

The assistant can do what the chipload command can do, and no more.

It can’t move your machine. Chipload never does.
render, which writes unchecked G-code for testing posts, isn’t offered.
A saved project keeps the previous file as .bak.

Look at what it made before you cut:

open the project in the app;
check the toolpath and the simulation;
read the setup sheet;
do an air cut.

An assistant can misread a drawing, or choose a side, a depth or a tool you didn’t mean.

Watching it work

Open the project in the app while the assistant works on it. Each time the assistant saves the file, the app loads the new version within a couple of seconds, so you see each change on the canvas, with its toolpath and simulation. Ctrl+Z goes back a step. If you’ve changed something in the app yourself and not saved it, the app asks before loading (The window).

Limits

The assistant works on the project’s file, not in the app. What you change in the app reaches the assistant only once you save.
It does one thing at a time; planning a big project takes a few seconds.