AI Assistant

Your drawing data, your project's session, and the JobEngine knowledge base, all in one conversation.

Three ways to use it

All routes see the same drawing through the same assistant backend.

What you can ask

About the drawing — the assistant reads the live drawing through AutoCAD:

• "What blocks are in this drawing?" / "What's on sheet PV4?"
• "Which blocks carry the DWG_CUSTOMER_NAME attribute, and which are empty?"
• "Read the wire schedule table" / "Read the BOM on PV3.1" — it can read programmatic tables (BOM, wire schedule, disconnect schedule) cell by cell.
• "Show me the main service panel" / "Zoom to the inverter" — the canvas tool selects and zooms to entities in your current view. It never switches you between model and paper space; if the target is in the other space, it tells you instead.
• Arbitrary entity questions: "find all multileaders on the TEXT & LEADER layer", "what polylines are on this sheet?" Under the hood the assistant first discovers what entity types and fields exist, then runs a bounded query, then (if you asked to see it) selects/zooms. You just ask in plain English.

About the project — with the plugin signed in:

• "Search for the session for 123 Main St" / "Which session is stamped on this drawing?"
• "Pull the project snapshot" — CRM fields, comments, links, photos, and files for the project behind the current drawing.
• "Which photos did the EPC flag, and why?" — per-photo stars, flags, and captions.
• "Preview what stamping session X would write" — a dry run: it shows exactly which attributes would change, without touching the drawing.

Knowledge base — jurisdiction and utility design data:

• "What are the AHJ requirements for this project?" / "What code cycle applies?"
• "What's the utility's interconnection / production meter / NEM situation?"
• The assistant resolves the loaded session to its AHJ and utility automatically. If a field isn't shown, the knowledge base doesn't track it — the assistant is instructed never to guess.

Readiness audits:

• "Audit this drawing for missing attributes."
• "Are there orphan blocks?" / "Run a full audit" / "Score it per section."

Writes: nothing changes without a preview and your confirmation

The assistant is deliberately conservative about changing your drawing:

• Reading is always safe. Everything above is read-only.
• Previews are dry runs. "Preview what stamping would write" produces a diff, not a change.
• Real writes use a two-step confirm flow: the assistant must first show you a dry-run preview, and the change only happens after you explicitly confirm it in the chat. Bulk attribute stamping from chat ships behind this gate; today, filling the drawing from a session is still done with LOAD_DT.
• The narrow exceptions: the assistant can place or delete individual equipment blocks when you ask it to, and the select/zoom canvas action changes only your view, never the drawing.

It cannot save the file, rename attribute tags, or flip block/layer visibility on its own — those stay behind the confirm gate or outside the assistant entirely.

Be specific, not exhaustive

Asking for "every attribute in the drawing" at once forces a slow full scan that can freeze AutoCAD for up to a minute — even from a browser tab or Claude window you aren't looking at. Ask about a specific block, tag, or sheet and let the assistant narrow down:

• ✅ "Which blocks on PV4 carry DWG_SYSTEM_SIZE?"
• ⚠️ "List every attribute and value in the whole drawing."

If you truly need the whole inventory, say so — there's a dedicated full-export path that avoids the freeze.

What the assistant can NOT do

• Edit the drawing autonomously. No stamping, saving, attribute edits, or visibility changes without the dry-run-then-confirm flow — and most of those writes aren't wired to chat yet at all.
• Switch your model/paper space. The canvas tool works within your current space and reports targets that live in the other one.
• Rename attribute tags or change the data mapping. That's a template-authoring action with its own workflow — see Renaming attributes.
• Run without AutoCAD. The drawing tools need AutoCAD open with the plugin loaded; if the connection drops, the assistant reports it rather than guessing.
• Invent knowledge-base data. If the KB doesn't track a field, the assistant says so instead of inferring.
• See other people's sessions. Project data is scoped to sessions you own; the assistant can't elevate to admin views.

Troubleshooting

More: AI assistant troubleshooting.