Pascal Editor: a local-first 3D building editor that runs in the browser

Building-modeling tools split cleanly by cost: Revit wants a subscription, SketchUp Pro bills yearly, and Blender is free but behaves like a factory that does everything. Pascal Editor (TypeScript, MIT, about 24.9k stars and 3.1k forks as of 2026-10-15) takes the other route: a 3D building editor written with React Three Fiber and WebGPU that opens in a browser, keeps projects in a local SQLite database, and exposes an MCP interface so AI agents can work on the scene directly.

Core features

• The browser is the modeling software: the editor runs in the browser with no desktop suite to install; a local install is one command — npx @pascal-app/cli editor with Node.js 22.13+, no repository clone required.
• local-first data: projects live in ~/.pascal/data/pascal.db (SQLite), and under /data when self-hosted. The project describes itself as “a 3D building editor for humans and AI agents”.
• MCP is a native capability: starting the editor through the CLI also starts an authenticated MCP service in the background; pascal mcp connect needs neither the editor process nor an upload.
• Seven npm packages: core, viewer and CLI ship separately (@pascal-app/core, @pascal-app/viewer, @pascal-app/cli), and the viewer runtime plus node definitions install into your own application on their own.
• Self-hostable: the official image is ghcr.io/pascalorg/pascal-editor, versioned with the npm packages; one admin password protects the instance, and PASCAL_PUBLIC_URL is read at runtime so one image serves any domain.
• Agent skills are published: the repo ships pascal-3d and furniture-fit skills, installed with npx skills add pascalorg/editor --skill pascal-3d; Claude Code and Codex both have plugin paths.

Typical use cases

• Anyone sketching a floor plan, placing furniture or building a digital record of their own home: open the browser and start, no three-month tutorial first.
• Front-end teams embedding 3D scenes into a product: install the viewer package alone and read scene data from the local database.
• Teams letting agents participate in modeling: the MCP interface plus skills means the agent inspects tool schemas before acting, and reports the narrower supported result rather than assuming a field exists.

Quick start

npx @pascal-app/cli editor

The CLI picks a collision-free loopback port and starts both the editor and the MCP service. To configure an agent, have it launch pascal mcp connect — no Pascal account or API key, and no automatic project upload. For self-hosting:

docker run -d -p 3000:3000 -v pascal-data:/data \
  -e PASCAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD=change-me \
  -e PASCAL_PUBLIC_URL=https://pascal.example.com \
  ghcr.io/pascalorg/pascal-editor:latest

Summary

For individuals and teams that want low-friction 3D building modeling, and for developers wiring the viewer or MCP capability into their own products. It is not the tool for Revit-grade BIM collaboration and drawing sign-off — Pascal solves “open a browser and model”, not “issue construction drawings”. TypeScript, MIT, 24,892 stars and 3,092 forks as of 2026-10-15 with pushes the same day — development is active.

Two things to know first: one local CLI service should serve a single active agent client, so concurrent work needs separate PASCAL_HOME directories and service processes; and the Pascal Next demo in the README (exploded views, section cuts, walkthroughs) is a hosted preview that is not yet part of the open-source editor release — do not plan around it as existing functionality. For a neighboring take on agents joining creative work, OpenCreator wires agents into video and copy pipelines where Pascal wires them into three-dimensional space.