Build AutoCAD UI with AI in 5 Steps | acad-cuix-builder + Agentic skills

Adding a custom UI to AutoCAD traditionally means using the CUI Editor or the AutoCAD CUI API (AcCui.dll) — a manual process that is verbose, easy to get wrong, and requires reloading the customization file every time you iterate. Meet acad-cuix-builder, an agentic skill that skips all of that: it builds a complete .cuix file directly from a natural language prompt and wraps it into a bundle that is ready to load.

The Traditional Way

Here is what manual CUIX creation looks like — useful context before you see how the skill compares:

The Agentic Way

Same result, natural language prompt, no XML editing:

How It Works

You describe your plugin — tab name, panels, buttons, and commands. The skill asks only for what is missing, builds a JSON config, and hands it to CuixBuilder.exe — a lightweight .NET 10 CLI that generates the CUIX XML and embeds BMP icons. If you do not provide images, the generator auto-creates colored 16×16 placeholder icons so you have a complete, loadable file from the first run.

Quick Start

First, download CuixBuilder.exe (~200 KB):

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/autodesk-platform-services/skills/main/skills/acad-cuix-builder/install.ps1 | iex

Then install the skill:

npx skills add autodesk-platform-services/skills --global --skill acad-cuix-builder

Open GitHub Copilot Chat or Claude Code and type:

/acad-cuix-builder

I need a ribbon tab called "Drafting Tools" with two panels:

Panel 1 — Annotation:
  - Quick Leader button (command: QLEADER)
  - Mtext button (command: MTEXT)

Panel 2 — View:
  - Zoom Extents (command: ZOOM E)
  - Regen (command: REGEN)

Save to C:\Temp\DraftingTools.cuix

The skill generates DraftingTools.cuix with auto-colored icons for each button. In AutoCAD, run CUILOAD, browse to the file, and the tab appears in the ribbon instantly.

Command Normalization

You do not need to know AutoCAD macro syntax. The skill handles the conversion automatically:

• QLEADER → ^C^CQLEADER
• zoom e → ^C^CZOOM E
• (alert "Hi") → ^C^C(alert "Hi")
• ^C^CMYCOMMAND → passed through unchanged

CuixBuilder.exe

CuixBuilder.exe is open source, framework-dependent, and ships as a ~200 KB download. It requires the .NET 10 runtime — which ships with AutoCAD 2027, so no separate install is needed on a developer machine. Releases are published automatically via GitHub Actions on every version tag.

Feedback

• General feedback: acadskillsfeedback@autodesk.com
• Bug reports: Open an issue at github.com/autodesk-platform-services/skills/issues with title starting [cuixbuilder] — e.g. “[cuixbuilder] – icon not embedded on first run”.
• CuixBuilder source: ADN-DevTech/acad-cuix-builder