SOLIDWORKS API Knowledge Base for Codex

Language: English | Русский

This project converts official SOLIDWORKS API documentation from .chm files into a local Markdown knowledge base and a compact navigation index for Codex/LLM agents.

The goal is to make it faster to write VBA macros and C# add-in applications without loading tens of thousands of documentation files into the model context.

This public repository contains the pipeline scripts, an example generated markdown/ corpus, and a ready-to-use llm_index/ based on SOLIDWORKS API 2024. Original .chm files and intermediate extracted HTML files are not published.

The project code is released under the MIT License and can be used in commercial projects. Generated Markdown may contain material derived from official SOLIDWORKS API documentation; see NOTICE.md.

Outputs

• API_HTML/ - HTML files extracted from CHM, without images/CSS/JS.
• markdown/ - Markdown documentation, one logical API topic per file.
• llm_index/ - compact lookup and graph indexes for fast navigation.
• AGENTS.md - instructions for Codex on how to use the index without wasting context.

Project Layout

.
├── api/                  # source .chm files for a specific SOLIDWORKS API version
├── extracted/            # full CHM extraction, generated
├── API_HTML/             # only .htm/.html files, generated
├── markdown/             # Markdown documentation, published as a SOLIDWORKS API 2024 example
├── llm_index/            # Codex/LLM index, published as a SOLIDWORKS API 2024 example
├── scripts/
│   ├── unpack_chm_recursive.sh
│   ├── collect_html.py
│   ├── convert_sw_api_docs.py
│   └── build_llm_index.py
├── AGENTS.md
├── NOTICE.md
├── LICENSE
├── requirements.txt
└── README.md

Dependencies

Python:

python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

To extract CHM files, you need extract_chmLib from chmlib.

Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt install libchm-bin

Fedora:

sudo dnf install chmlib

Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S chmlib

Check the command:

which extract_chmLib
extract_chmLib 2>&1 | head

If your distribution package does not provide extract_chmLib, install chmlib from source or use any compatible CHM extractor that supports this command shape:

extract_chmLib input.chm output_directory

Full Pipeline

1. Add CHM Files

Put .chm files for the target SOLIDWORKS API version into:

api/

Example:

api/sldworksapi.chm
api/sldworksapivb6.chm
api/swconst.chm
api/cworksapi.chm

2. Extract CHM Recursively

./scripts/unpack_chm_recursive.sh api extracted

The script runs multiple passes because extracted CHM files can contain nested .chm files.

3. Collect HTML Only

python3 scripts/collect_html.py extracted -o API_HTML --clean

This step removes images, CSS, JS, and other non-HTML files while preserving the directory structure.

4. Convert HTML to Markdown

python3 scripts/convert_sw_api_docs.py API_HTML -o markdown

The converter is specialized for the SOLIDWORKS/Innovasys help format:

• removes navigation and service markup;
• preserves headings, sections, tables, and lists;
• converts Syntax blocks into fenced code blocks;
• adds YAML metadata;
• preserves relationships through Markdown links.

5. Build the Codex/LLM Index

python3 scripts/build_llm_index.py markdown -o llm_index

The index is not meant to be a RAG database. It is a cheap navigation layer:

• find a symbol first;
• inspect its interface or related topics;
• open only the Markdown files that are actually needed.

Quick Checks

find markdown -type f -name '*.md' | wc -l
find llm_index -maxdepth 1 -type f | sort
rg 'IModelDoc2\\.Save' llm_index/symbols.tsv

Using with Codex in VSCode/VSCodium

Open this repository as a workspace, or add it as a second folder in a multi-root workspace next to your VBA/C# project.

Codex should be able to see:

• AGENTS.md
• llm_index/
• markdown/

Example prompt:

Use the SOLIDWORKS API knowledge base in this workspace.
Follow AGENTS.md.
I am writing a VBA macro. Find the correct API docs before writing code.

For a C# add-in:

Follow AGENTS.md.
I am writing a C# SOLIDWORKS add-in.
Prefer .NET API docs and C# syntax blocks.

Manual Index Usage

Find a symbol:

rg 'IModelDoc2\\.Save' llm_index/symbols.tsv

Find members of an interface:

rg '"interface": "IModelDoc2"' llm_index/interface_members.jsonl

Open the selected document:

sed -n '1,220p' markdown/sldworksapi/<file>.md

Index Files

• manifest.json - corpus summary.
• symbols.tsv - cheapest API symbol lookup.
• documents.tsv - fast document lookup.
• symbols.jsonl - structured symbol lookup.
• documents.jsonl - compact card for each Markdown file.
• nodes.jsonl - graph nodes.
• edges/ - sharded has_member, member_of, and links_to graph edges by source module.
• edges_manifest.json - edge shard counts and type summaries.
• interface_members.jsonl - interface/object -> methods/properties.
• modules.json - API module statistics.

GitHub Publishing Notes

Usually commit:

• scripts/
• README.md
• README.ru.md
• AGENTS.md
• LICENSE
• NOTICE.md
• requirements.txt
• markdown/, if you intentionally publish a generated example corpus for a specific API version
• llm_index/, if you intentionally publish a ready-to-use index for the included Markdown corpus

Keep large/reproducible artifacts out of Git or publish them separately:

• api/
• extracted/
• API_HTML/

If you do not want generated data in Git history, publish markdown/ and llm_index/ as release artifacts instead.