Limitations

What Zirkle doesn't do, and what to do instead. Zirkle names every limit in the message you get, with a code you can look up.

How Zirkle works, and what follows from it

• Your CAD must be open on this PC. Zirkle controls the CAD program through its automation interface. It doesn't edit DWG files on its own, and it can't work while the PC is off.
• One request, one undo step. Zirkle groups each request into one undo step and keeps a record of its own changes. It refuses to undo when you changed the drawing yourself in between, and its record starts fresh when the AI app restarts it; then you use Ctrl+Z in your CAD.
• 30 seconds per call. When a read takes your CAD longer than 30 seconds, Zirkle stops waiting and nothing is changed; the AI asks for a narrower request (ZK-CAD-005). A change your CAD doesn't confirm within 30 seconds may still finish, so Zirkle checks the drawing before doing anything else (ZK-CAD-008). Searches in very large drawings report how far they got (ZK-READ-001).
• Tool lists are read at start. Turning a toolset, the Advanced tool or Power mode on takes effect after you restart the AI app. Turning something off applies immediately.
• The AI chooses. Zirkle offers tools and the rules for using them; Claude or ChatGPT decides how to carry out your request. Check the result, with a screenshot or by asking what changed, as you would with a colleague's work.

Trial and licence

• After the 5-day trial, reading and explaining drawings keep working; drawing and editing need a licence.
• A licence is for one PC. It can be moved to another PC twice a year, at zirkle.app/license/move.
• Activating a key needs one online check. A PC that never goes online is activated by hand, through No internet on this PC? in Zirkle Settings → License.

ChatGPT

• Local tools like Zirkle need a ChatGPT Plus plan or higher.
• ChatGPT gives a tool 60 seconds. When ChatGPT asks you to click in your CAD, Zirkle waits up to 40 seconds, then cancels the request in your CAD. In Claude the wait is up to 110 seconds.
• ChatGPT has no place yet where Zirkle can add its skills: you paste them into a project's instructions from zirkle.app/skills.

Off by default

• Xrefs & images and 3D are toolsets that are off until you turn them on in Zirkle Settings → Toolsets.
• Power mode (CAD commands and AutoLISP) is off until you turn it on in Zirkle Settings → Safety and accept its warning. The AI then asks you before every run. Text inside a drawing someone sent you can try to trick the AI into running code: keep Power mode off for drawings you don't trust.
• The Advanced tool reads and changes only properties on Zirkle's allowlist. Anything that loads code, runs programs or touches files outside the drawing is refused (ZK-ADV-001).

Verified on each CAD program

Zirkle is built for AutoCAD, ZWCAD and GstarCAD 2022 and later, and each toolset is checked on real installations of the three before it is released. When a tool isn't available on your CAD, the message says so and names the CAD.

Not in this version

• Folder batch (title blocks, layer remapping, PDF sets across a folder of drawings) and image tracing (vectors from a scan or a photo): planned for the first update after launch. Attach the image as an underlay and draw over it for now.
• Office conventions files (layer and text standards the AI follows): after launch. Tell the AI your conventions in the conversation, or in a skill you paste.
• Languages other than English and Spanish for Zirkle's own texts. Your CAD can run in any language.
• macOS, AutoCAD LT, AutoCAD for Mac and AutoCAD Web: they have no automation interface. Not planned.
• BricsCAD and other CAD programs: after launch, by demand.
• Editing DWG files without a running CAD: a different product.
• Buying inside ChatGPT or Claude: licences are sold on zirkle.app only.
• Using Zirkle from the web or a phone: Zirkle runs on the PC where your CAD is.

Deliberately left out

Some CAD features aren't offered as tools, and the AI says no tool does it. The usual way around is in brackets.

• Associating dimensions to geometry after an edit (the AI re-dimensions and removes the old ones in one step).
• Asking you for text or a number inside the CAD window (the AI asks in the chat).
• Deleting a layer with everything on it in one call (the AI deletes the objects first, then purges the layer, and asks before each).
• Recovering a damaged drawing (run RECOVER in your CAD).
• Annotative objects, field updates, associative arrays, WMF/SAT/EPS import and export, jogged and broken dimensions, centre marks, UCS changes, 3D rotate and mirror, meshes, surfaces, section planes, visual styles, DWF export (Power mode, when you turn it on).
• Loading code, VBA, scripts, program execution, network access, preference writes, profiles, menus, closing the CAD, window state, plot preview, hyperlinks and shape files: never exposed, by design.