Woodchuck

Woodchuck is a furniture planner you talk to. You describe a piece of wooden furniture, Claude builds it with a fixed set of woodworking tools, and you both edit the same 3D model. A picture of a piece isn't enough to build it from, so every size is worked out from the design, checked after every change and set out on a cut list and workshop drawings you can trust before you cut timber. It runs on your own computer and keeps your designs there.

Get it running

You need these.

• Node 24 or newer, which comes with npm.

• git, which keeps every design's version history.

• macOS or Linux. Windows isn't covered, since start.sh is a bash script.

• An Anthropic API key for the chat with Claude. Without one, everything except the chat still works.

• An OpenAI API key if you want the AI blend in photo mode. It's optional, and each blend costs money.

• Google Chrome or Chromium, only if another app will ask Woodchuck for pictures of a design.

Install the packages and make your settings file.

git clone https://github.com/shawn-durrani/woodchuck.git
cd woodchuck
npm ci
cp .env.example .env

Open .env and put your Anthropic key after ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=. Git ignores .env, so your keys stay out of the repo. Then start it.

./start.sh

Open http://127.0.0.1:8905. The first start builds the web app, which takes a minute. After that start.sh only reinstalls or rebuilds when something changed. Woodchuck answers on this computer only, and your designs are kept in data/, which git ignores. docs/CONFIG.md lists every other setting, such as the port.

To work on Woodchuck itself, run npm run dev and open http://127.0.0.1:8906. That reloads the page as you change the code.

Turn on GitHub, if you want it

Woodchuck can file a missing tool as a GitHub issue and share a part you approve as a pull request. It stays off until you name a repository you can write to, such as your own fork. It works through the GitHub CLI, so install that and sign in.

gh auth login

Then add the repository to .env, written owner/name, and restart.

WOODCHUCK_REPO=you/woodchuck

The issues and pull requests it opens are public whenever that repository is. A missing tool's issue quotes your design only when you tick the box for it.

Keep it running, if you want

On macOS, one command hands Woodchuck to launchd, which starts it at login and restarts it if it stops. Run it from the checkout.

service/install-service.sh

On Linux, run ./start.sh under your own service manager. docs/OPERATIONS.md covers both, with restarts and logs.

Updating

Pull the new code, then restart Woodchuck.

git pull

Run ./start.sh again, or restart the service with launchctl kickstart -k gui/$(id -u)/dev.woodchuck.server. It reinstalls packages and rebuilds the web app when they've changed. A restart in the middle of Claude's turn cuts that turn off, so wait until the chat is quiet. An open window reloads itself onto the new version once nothing would be lost.

Related MCP server: MCP Server for SketchUp

What it does

• Claude designs with you. It builds a first draft straight away, so you watch it take shape, then pins its plan beside the model. While it works, the screen follows it through the same tabs and controls you'd use, and you can keep talking to it and editing.

• It never fakes a design. Claude works with panels, joints, arrays, hardware and rules, and never writes code. When those can't express something, it stops and writes up the tool it needs.

• Every size shows its working. A dado lengthens the shelf it holds, and the cut list says so. Change one size and everything that depends on it moves.

• Checks run after every change. They catch overlaps, parts nothing holds up, joints out of proportion, parts too big for your stock and the rules you set. A design is ready to cut only when nothing is in error.

• Joints come from a library of fourteen, from butt joints and pocket screws to Dominos, mortise and tenons, half laps, box joints and through slots. A drawer's bottom sits in grooves and its corners are rabbeted. Each says when it suits, which tools cut it and its usual proportions, and a worked example on two sample boards shows how it goes together.

• Workshop drawings print at true scale. They come as a PDF on A4 or A3, with the main views, a drawing of each part, the cut list, the cutting plan, the drilling list, the Domino settings and the hardware list. Every size on them matches the cut list to 0.1 mm.

• Cut layout buys the least timber. Tell it the boards and sheets you already have, and it cuts from those first, ripping narrower parts from wider boards, and buys only the rest. It places every part a saw kerf apart and lists the offcuts worth keeping. The cutting plan prints it on one page to take to the saw, each board by letter with its parts in cutting order and its rips.

• Finishes look like timber. Pick a species and a Linolie Satin Wood Oil or Osmo Polyx-Oil colour for a material, a part or a single face, and the Finished look draws its grain under daylight, evening or workshop light.

• Your room, with the piece in it. Photo places the design in a photo of your room at its true size. The optional AI blend relights the piece to match, and labels the result as not to scale.

• Point at what you mean. Click parts, drag a box or drop numbered pins to tell Claude what to change. A change it suggests is drawn on the model as a ghost until you apply it.

• Real parts, researched. Name a drawer slide or a hinge, or paste a link, and Claude researches it on the web and proposes a part card with its sources. Once you approve it, every design can use it.

• Nothing is lost. Every change is one undo, whether you or Claude made it, and a version in a git history on your computer.

• From your phone or another chat. Put Woodchuck on your own tailnet behind an owner lock to use it from a phone, as docs/REMOTE_ACCESS.md says. It's also an MCP server, so another chat app can work on the open design, as docs/MCP.md says.

The record console, in the design menu, is a worked example and the acceptance test in docs/TESTING.md. Its LP check fails until you change its drawer slides, and the example's card says why.

Your workshop

Claude plans around your workshop. Your workshop, in the design menu on the design's name, holds the tools you have, your usual finishes, the language Claude writes in and the country it searches for parts in. Claude reads them at the start of each message, and changing them never changes a design.

A new install starts with a standard home workshop. That's a table saw or track saw, a router, a drill/driver, a pocket-hole jig, chisels and clamps, with Linolie Satin Wood Oil for colour and Osmo Polyx-Oil Raw 3044 on birch plywood. Claude starts out writing in Australian English and searching for parts in Australia. Change any of them to suit you, and leave the country empty to search anywhere.

Documentation

docs/README.md lists every document by what you're trying to do.

• ARCHITECTURE.md holds the settled design decisions and the reasons for them.

• docs/CONFIG.md lists every setting and its default.

• docs/OPERATIONS.md covers keeping it running, restarts, logs and your designs.

• docs/REMOTE_ACCESS.md puts it on your tailnet, behind a lock.

• docs/MCP.md connects another chat app.

• docs/TESTING.md says what the tests hold.

• CONTRIBUTING.md says how to send a change.

• SECURITY.md says who can reach the app, what leaves your computer and how to report a problem privately.

Licence

MIT.