Talk to an AI assistant without leaving Blender.
Experimental. Tested only on macOS.
| Dependency | Needed for | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Blender 4.2 or newer | everything | Hosts the addon; the chat lives in the Python Console editor, and development targets the current LTS. |
| The Claude CLI, signed in | everything | Answers every message — each one is a claude -p run under your own account, so the addon never calls an API itself. |
| The Blender Lab MCP extension (Blender 5.1+), enabled, server running | scene access | Exposes your running Blender session on a local socket, which is the only way Claude can see or change the scene. |
| uv | scene access | Fetches and runs the small bridge process that connects the Claude CLI to that socket. |
git |
scene access | Lets uv fetch the bridge from the Blender Lab repository, which is pinned to a released tag. |
Only the first two are needed to chat. The other three are what let Claude act
on your scene rather than only talk about it, and all of them must be visible to
Blender itself — see Install for getting each one where it can find them.
Check the CLI with claude -p "hi" in a terminal: if that answers, it is ready.
The addon's preferences check all five for you.
- Get
deckhand-<version>.zip— either download it from this repository's Releases page, or build it yourself: clone the repository and run./build.sh, which writes the same zip, laid out the way Blender expects. (If someone handed you the zip already, skip to step 2.) - In Blender: Edit → Preferences → Add-ons → Install from Disk…, pick the zip, and tick Deckhand to enable it.
- Open the addon's preferences (the arrow next to its name). It checks your setup on its own and lists what is missing.
The addon expects claude on the PATH Blender itself sees. On macOS and Linux
it also looks in ~/.claude/local, ~/.local/bin, /opt/homebrew/bin and
/usr/local/bin, which covers most installs; on Windows it relies on PATH
alone.
uv and git work the same way — they must be on the PATH Blender sees.
Install them with:
| - | uv | git |
|---|---|---|
| macOS | brew install uv, or the installer |
xcode-select --install |
| Linux | curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh |
your package manager (apt install git, …) |
| Windows | winget install astral-sh.uv |
Git for Windows |
On Windows, sign out and back in afterwards — uv lands in
%USERPROFILE%\.local\bin, and Blender only sees the updated PATH in a
session started after that. On macOS and Linux, restarting Blender from a
terminal is the quickest way to hand it your shell's PATH.
Finally, install the MCP extension from the Blender Lab repository (Preferences → Get Extensions), enable it, and start its server — or tick its Auto Start. Press Check Again in the addon preferences; every row should be green.
- Switch any area to the Python Console editor.
- Click Deckhand in its header. The prompt changes to
opus:medium>— the model and effort level in use. - Type and press Enter.
Every message carries a read-only snapshot of your session: the .blend file path, scene name, object count, active object, current selection, and mode. So "why is this thing shading weird?" refers to something Claude can already name, with no setup.
Messages also run in your .blend file's own directory. If you keep a CLAUDE.md
or notes next to the file, Claude picks them up the way it would in a terminal.
Unsaved files fall back to your home directory.
By default Claude can only talk. It never runs code and never edits your scene.
Turning on Use Blender MCP in the addon preferences connects it to the Blender Lab MCP extension, which lets it run Python in your session, take screenshots, inspect the blend file, and look things up in Blender's API docs. Claude can change or break your work while this is on. Save first and keep a backup file.
Deckhand is free software under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later — see LICENSE for the full text and NOTICE for the short form.
Copyright (C) 2026 Arkadiusz Kasprzyk. This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; see sections 11 and 12 of the license. You are responsible for what runs in your Blender session.
Both files ship inside the installable zip, so the license and the warranty disclaimer travel with the addon rather than living only here — this README is not part of the zip.
Deckhand is not affiliated with, endorsed, or sponsored by the Blender Foundation or Anthropic. Blender is a trademark of the Blender Foundation; Claude is a trademark of Anthropic PBC.