Inventor Automation API template: Visual Studio Project Templates for Inventor

Templates

All the installed templates are available when creating a new project.

• Open Visual Studio
• Create a new project (File → New → Project)
• Select "Visual C#" group
• Pick an installed template (e.g. "Inventor Automation API template")
• Enter a name
• Click OK
• Rebuild Solution
• Open Task List (View → Task List) and complete all tasks

Inventor Automation API template (recommended)

It is a multiple project solution. There are three projects: "Debug Plugin Locally", "Plugin project" and "Interaction project". It is recommended to start with this template.

Wizard

Wizard will open once you click on "Create". It will ask you which .NET version you are targeting:

• .NET 8 - recommended for Inventor 2025 or newer.
• .NET Framework 4.8 - use if you need to target Inventor 2024 or older.

You can also fill in other info that can be changed later:

• Path to your Inventor Bin folder - for Debug Plugin Locally and Plugin projects
  • Path will be replaced by PATH_TO_YOUR_INVENTOR_BIN if left empty
• Inventor version - for Interaction project
  • Latest version is selected if no version is found (Inventor version will be shown as None in the Wizard)
• Credentials (Client ID and Secret) - for Interaction project
  • Credetials will be replaced by !!! CHANGE ME !!! if left empty
• Note: template will list only installed Inventor versions that are supported by the selected .NET version

Validity of the path to your Inventor Bin folder is checked automatically. Warning icon will be shown if the path is not correct. Hover over it for more info.

If you want to confirm validity of the credentials, click on the "Check credentials" button. It will try to send a request to obtain an Access Token with necessary scope. After that message box with result will be shown.

Confirm by clicking "Finish" (validity is not checked).

If you have chosen .NET Framework version, message telling you that the project has been modified will appear. Click on "Reload All".

Debug Plugin Locally

This project is used for debugging of a plugin. It starts a local Inventor, opens a document and runs the plugin. The project has to reference the plugin (Project → Add Reference). Use this template if you have a solution with a plugin which you need to debug (Add → New Project).

Interaction project

A sample project, which allows to post app bundle, activity and work item to the Automation Service services by using [.NET SDK]. By default building this project will also build Plugin project. You can change which projects you want tu build (tutorial here).

Plugin project

This template creates a new plugin which contains just the most important code.

There are two variants of this project:

• Plugin project - .NET Framework 4.8
• Plugin project (.NET 8) - .NET 8

There is a step-by-step tutorial which demonstrates how to upload the plugin and run a workitem on the server.

Tutorials

Build Plugin project with Interaction project

• In the Project menu, choose Project Dependencies
• Choose Interaction project
• Add your Plugin project to Depends on

Change path to Inventor Bin folder

• Open .csproj of your DebugPluginLocally and Plugin projects
• Search for <InventorBinFolder> and change the path

Change Credentials

• Open appsettings.json in your Interaction project
• Change ClientId and ClientSecret

Change Inventor version

• Open Publisher.Custom.cs in your Interaction project
• Change the Engine variable

Disable or Uninstall Visual Studio Project Template for Inventor

If you want to disable or uninstalled Visual Studio Project Template for Inventor

• Open Visual Studio
• Create a new project (File → New → Project)
• Select "Visual C#" group
• Pick an installed template (e.g. "Inventor Automation API template")
• Enter a name
• Open Manage Extensions (Extensions → Manage Extensions)
• Find Visual Studio Project Template for Inventor
• Disable or Uninstall it
• Close Manage Extensions dialog
• Close Visual Studio
• Click "Modify" button in the VSIX Installer dialog if uninstall Visual Studio Project Template for Inventor
• Close VSIX Installer dialog

Release Notes

2.1.0 (07/01/2025)

• Renamed Design Automation to Autodesk Automation
• Renamed template name to Inventor Automation API template

2.0.0 (02/13/2025)

• Added support for Inventor 2025_Ne8
• Added .NET 8 version of Plugin project
• Updated DebugPluginLocally project to .NET 8
• Implemented wizard for Design Automation for Inventor
• Plugin project builds when building Interaction project
• VS2022 is minimal supported version

1.0.15 (05/22/2024)

• Added support for Inventor 2025
• Updated Interaction project to .NET 8

1.0.14 (08/17/2023)

• New logo

1.0.13 (05/22/2023)

• Added support for Inventor 2024

1.0.12 (09/14/2022)

• Added support for Visual Studio 2022
• Added support for Inventor 2023

1.0.10 (10/07/2020)

• Updated Plugin projects to .NET 4.8
• Updated Interaction project to .NET Core 3.1
• Updating list of available engine list in Interaction project (See. Interaction/Publisher.Custom.cs)

1.0.9 (10/07/2020)

• Activity command line now has both appbundles and args in quotes (as required by a change on Design Automation).
• Interaction project now uses Autodesk.Forge.DesignAutomation release version 3.0.3 (rather than beta).

1.0.8 (08/20/2020)

• DebugPluginLocally now runs inventor in silent mode to better simulate real environment
• In order to support VS option "Place solution and project in the same directory" the plugins Output folder is now created outside of the Plugin project directory rather than on the solution directory level

1.0.7 (08/20/2020)

• Updated utilities NuGet to 2.0.0
• Added example of use for new extension class for NameValueMap

1.0.6 (10/11/2019)

• Add action to remove existed app bundle and activity
• Update doc about how to disable or uninstalled the template
• Support FORGE_CLIENT_ID and FORGE_CLIENT_SECRET env vars

1.0.5 (07/29/2019)

• added support of Visual Studio 2019

1.0.4 (06/13/2019)

• Use "native" way to create zip archive with bundle

1.0.3 (06/11/2019)

• VS2017 is minimal supported version

1.0.2 (06/05/2019)

• Added sample function to be used for onDemand downloads

1.0.1 (01/24/2019)

• added nugets into the extension

1.0 (11/12/2018)

• initial version