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SVD AI Lab docs

Ansys Workbench plugin for sim-cli

Drive Ansys Workbench from Codex, Claude Code, and other local AI coding agents through sim-cli.

What you can do

Section titled “What you can do”
  • Run Workbench journals — execute IronPython journal files end to end against a Workbench session, with structured success/failure reporting.
  • Inspect a Workbench project — read project structure, analysis systems, and component cells from a .wbpj without manually parsing Workbench’s archive format.
  • Persistent sessions — keep a Workbench process open across many agent steps so geometry imports, mesh changes, and reruns don’t have to pay the startup cost each time.
  • Mechanical handoff — open a Mechanical system inside a Workbench project and route Mechanical-specific operations through the mechanical plugin.
  • Bounded execution with artifacts — each step writes a structured result an agent can verify before continuing.

Install

Section titled “Install”
Terminal window
uv init  # only if this is not already a uv project
uv add sim-cli-core sim-plugin-workbench
uv run sim plugin sync-skills --target .agents/skills --copy   # Codex / Copilot
uv run sim plugin sync-skills --target .claude/skills --copy   # Claude Code
uv run sim check workbench
uv run sim plugin doctor workbench --deep

Quick start

Section titled “Quick start”

Run a journal against a Workbench project:

Terminal window
uv run sim run --solver workbench --driver-option project=path/to/model.wbpj path/to/journal.py

Iterative session against a Workbench project:

Terminal window
uv run sim connect --solver workbench --driver-option project=path/to/model.wbpj
uv run sim exec '<your Workbench journal snippet>'
uv run sim inspect session.summary
uv run sim disconnect

Prerequisites

Section titled “Prerequisites”
  • A licensed Ansys Workbench installation on the host (includes Workbench and any sub-products you intend to drive — Mechanical, Fluent, HFSS, etc.)
  • Python 3.10+ and uv on the same machine

Not the same as mechanical

Section titled “Not the same as mechanical”

Workbench is the project-orchestration layer that wires analysis systems together. Mechanical is one sub-solver inside a Workbench project. Use workbench for project-level orchestration and journal execution; use mechanical for direct Mechanical model authoring.

Source

Section titled “Source”