Vellum Assistant
Type drafting commands in plain language and watch the assistant execute them on your drawing.
The assistant lives behind the Assistant button in the toolbar. Type a command in plain language and it runs against the open drawing using Vellum's real tools, so everything it creates is ordinary, editable geometry.
The assistant is new. Every reply carries thumbs-up, thumbs-down, and flag controls; using them sends the exchange to the Vellum team so the assistant can learn.
Commands it runs on its own
These execute instantly in your browser, with no account connection required.
| Say this | What happens |
|---|---|
| measure this | Reports length, area, and perimeter of the selected entity in real-world units. |
| what's the scale? | Reports the active drawing scale and its units. |
| set the scale to 1"=20' | Sets the drawing scale. Accepts equations (1/4"=1', 1:100) or preset ids. |
| draw a circle that is 20' diameter | Draws a true parametric circle at that real-world size, centered where you are looking. |
| highlight all instances of Title | Sweeps the page and highlights every match of that word. |
| revision cloud all changes | Draws a revision cloud around every markup on the page. |
| export this to flattened PDF | Runs the real export engine and downloads the file. |
| open the keyboard shortcut menu | Opens the shortcuts panel. |
| help | Lists everything the assistant can currently do. |
Scale must be established before measuring
The assistant refuses to measure on a sheet whose scale has not been set, rather than silently returning values at the wrong scale. Set it first with set the scale to ..., or calibrate from a known dimension. See Drawing scale.
Where each command runs
The panel handles the deterministic drafting commands above. Anything compositional, such as counting symbols, plotting setbacks, laying out parking, or reading a schedule, runs on your own connected Claude. See connect your Claude.
Ask the assistant to help at any time and it will list its current commands. If it does not understand a request, it files that request with the Vellum team as a feature request.