Rhino 3D & Grasshopper MCP servers and AI agent skills

How AI connects to Rhino 3D & Grasshopper

An MCP server or skill can only do what Rhino 3D & Grasshopper lets programs do. Rhino 3D & Grasshopper exposes 3 automation interfaces:

• RhinoCommon (.NET SDK) (.NET): RhinoCommon is the .NET SDK behind Rhino plugins and Grasshopper components, and it is what every Rhino MCP server here is built on. The usual pattern is a small .rhp plugin or .gha component that opens a local TCP or HTTP port, typically started with a command such as MCPConnect or mcpstart, so an external MCP process can send geometry calls into the running document. Documentation
• Python in Rhino and Grasshopper (Python): Rhino runs Python scripts against the open document, and McNeel documents Python 3 for Rhino and Grasshopper alongside older IronPython scripts. Several servers expose a "run Python" tool as an escape hatch, which is powerful but runs with your user's permissions. Check which interpreter a server targets; one needs Rhino 8.11 or later in Developer mode for CPython 3. Documentation
• Grasshopper SDK (.NET): Grasshopper definitions are graphs of components, so agent tools here search the installed component library, place components, wire parameters, set sliders and read solved outputs. Servers such as Cordyceps live inside a Grasshopper component and stop when you remove it from the canvas, while RhinoAI can also convert definitions between Grasshopper 1 and 2. Documentation

What McNeel offers

McNeel's RhinoAI is a Rhino BETA feature with two parts: an in-Rhino chat panel opened with the AI command, which works with Claude and Codex, and the RhinoMCP server started with MCPConnect. Rhino 8 users install it as the Rhino-MCP-Platform package. The code is MIT-licensed on McNeel's GitHub, and McNeel's forum calls the integration a beginning rather than a finished feature.

Checked 4 Nov 2026. Sources: McNeel Forum, "Rhino BETA Feature: RhinoAI", mcneel/RhinoAI on GitHub, RhinoAI documentation

What you can do with Rhino 3D & Grasshopper and AI

• Model from a sketch or description, creating curves, surfaces and solids with lofts, sweeps and booleans, and organising the result on named layers.
• Build a Grasshopper definition by placing and wiring components, then adjust sliders and read the solved output back to check it.
• Generate building massing, floor plates, cores and facade openings, then cut sections and produce gross and net area schedules.
• Check geometry intent as well as validity, for example that a vault stays within a height limit or that no element floats unsupported.
• Capture the viewport so the agent can see what it made, then apply materials and render or bake Grasshopper geometry into Rhino.

Taken from the listings' own documentation. Check each listing for exactly what it supports.

Installing

The listings here document setup for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cline, Codex, Cursor, Gemini Antigravity, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot, Local models (LM Studio), Ollama, VS Code, VS Code (GitHub Copilot) and claude.ai. Install steps, copied from each project's own documentation, are on each listing's page. Most Rhino 3D & Grasshopper integrations run on your own computer next to Rhino 3D & Grasshopper, so you need Rhino 3D & Grasshopper installed and licensed on the same machine unless the listing says otherwise.