The Cockpit
uv run forge ui starts the Product Cockpit. One rule governs every panel:
the UI shows what the pipeline produced. Every lens is a view model over
the same validate/build pipeline the CLI runs; errors are structured findings,
never a traceback.
The shell
Section titled “The shell”The top bar carries the capability truth of your environment:
| Badge | Meaning |
|---|---|
CAD ON/OFF | is the CAD kernel (cadquery) importable — builds need it, validation doesn’t |
LLM ON/OFF | is an Anthropic key present — OFF falls back to deterministic bilingual intents |
STRICT default | strict mode is the default: unsupported features fail, they don’t degrade |
Navigation: Home · Catalog · Create · Assemble · Library · Workspace. Home offers the entry cards (From prompt to product); Catalog shows archetype cards (each with an open in wizard button) and the examples list (open in workspace); Assemble composes multi-part products from a prompt; Library holds your saved builds to reopen or rebuild.
The Workspace
Section titled “The Workspace”Three columns:
- Tree (left) — the product decomposed: contract must-haves and must-not-haves, the archetype, the Form IR (section, regions, holes, pins, fields) and the exposed parameters. Everything is clickable — a click opens an inspector card over the viewport.
- Viewport (center) — the active lens.
- Console (right) — the status badge and the findings table. Its caption is the philosophy in one line: “validate is CAD-free truth; build adds geometry probes”.
The five lenses
Section titled “The five lenses”3D — the built STL with orbit controls. Region boxes render as translucent volumes, color-keyed by role; click one to select it (the part goes ghosted, the region lights up). Before the first build the lens honestly says so — section and region lenses work without CAD. The ⭳ STL button downloads exactly what the viewport shows.
SECTION — the profile drawn directly from Form IR segments as exact
SVG lines and arcs — no mesh, no tessellation fuzz. Segments are color-keyed
by their semantic tags; the side panel lists headline frame values
(mouth_gap, wall, …).
HONESTY — the capability table: per requested feature — requested / supported / built / verified. A feature that hasn’t been proven by its validators shows as NOT built, and admitted engine gaps are listed, not hidden. Assemblies get an assembly-honesty view with joint findings.
MANUFACTURING — print orientation, form kind, extrusion width, and every finding at the manufacturing level (min wall, overhang, bed fit) with measured values.
REGION / EDIT — one lens, two halves: the semantic-edit panel and a live region viewport with the same click-to-pick. This is where the part changes — see Semantic editing.
Regions in the inspector
Section titled “Regions in the inspector”Click any region in the tree or viewport to see its card: id, role, box dimensions in mm, and its edit status — either “editable · modifiers: 〈list〉” or “protected — keepouts derive from this role”. Regions are never geometry-edited directly: an editable region is a target for modifiers; a protected region is a keepout that modifiers must respect.
Builds and edit-applies run as background jobs with a live log in the UI. A failed job reports a structured finding — the same shape the validators speak — so failure is diagnosable, not decorative.