Your first prompt

One question, then one small edit on a part whose behavior you already know.

Pick the right part to start on

Use a part you modeled yourself and could rebuild from memory. You are checking CADABRA against your own judgment, which only works if you have one for this file.

Do not start on a released assembly, a file checked out to someone else, or a part that already has a rebuild error. A pre-existing error is not attributed to your edit, but it makes the first result harder to read.

The two pills in the composer

The left pill is the mode. On first run it is Ask, and after that the last mode you used is remembered on that machine. Ask reads and never edits, so a request to change something answers "That would change your model. Switch to Agent mode to build or edit it." The six modes are described in all modes.

The right pill is the model level, shown as "Level: Medium". You pick a level, never a model name, and the product never shows one. Free has Low only, so the pill is hidden. Student and Professional have Low, Medium, High, Ultra and Max and default to Medium. Enterprise adds Max and defaults to it. There is no automatic routing: a turn runs at the level shown, and if your plan drops below your saved level the plan default is used silently. See plans and limits.

Ask before you edit

These change nothing. They tell you whether CADABRA is reading the document you think it is.

What is the overall bounding box of this part?
Confirms it can see the geometry. Bounding box, mass, volume, material and body count all come from the same digest.
List the features in this tree and what each one does.
Confirms it can read the history, not just the solid.
What custom properties are set on this file?
Confirms it can read properties. Up to 16 reach the model.
Why did this feature fail to rebuild?
Confirms it can reason about the specific error in front of it. Debug Mode goes further and forces a rebuild first.

Then make one small edit

Switch the mode pill to Agent. Pick a change with one obvious correct outcome. Changing a single dimension is ideal. Adding a fillet to a named face is a good second.

Say the operation, the reference and the number. Make the wall 3 mm thicker works because all three are present. Make it stronger does not, because none of them are. Writing prompts is the full grammar.

  1. Send it. On the default approval setting the agent runs a read-only planning pass first and shows the steps with Approve and Deny.
  2. Approve, and watch the feature tree. New and modified features are the evidence of what it did.
  3. Compare against what you expected. A difference means the instruction was ambiguous more often than it means the edit was wrong.
  4. If it is wrong, say so in the next message. CADABRA deletes the features it created, by name. It does not restore a value it overwrote, so re-enter that yourself. How it works has the detail.

Approval preference, and the dashboard setting that is not it

In the panel, open Settings from the person icon and find Approvals. Approval preference has three values and is stored on the machine, not on your account.

  • Always ask: approve every change to your SolidWorks model before it runs.
  • Ask for large tasks, the default: review the plan once before the agent changes your SolidWorks model. Small reads run freely.
  • Never ask: let the agent change your SolidWorks model without asking.

Drawings Mode has no approval step, so Always ask blocks it outright and the refusal names this setting. Set it to Ask for large tasks or Never ask to generate drawings.

The dashboard has a separate switch, Apply Agent changes without review, off by default, in preferences. It is an account-level preference and does not rename or replace the panel setting. There is no control called "Auto-apply agent changes".

Where to go next