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Tesseract – 3D architecture editor with MCP for AI-assisted design

Tesseract – 3D architecture editor with MCP for AI-assisted design

by infrastellar·Feb 25, 2026·3 points·2 comments
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AI Analysis

●●●BangerWizardryBig BrainShip It

Bidirectional code↔diagram with Claude MCP beats text-only codebase analysis tools.

Strengths
  • •MCP integration means Claude reads/writes diagrams without custom plugins or API wrappers
  • •3D canvas with animated data flows adds genuine visual dimension beyond text AST dumps
  • •Shipped desktop app (macOS/Windows/Linux) with free tier — not vaporware
Weaknesses
  • •'Chat with your codebase' category already served by Cursor, Continue, Sourcegraph Cody
  • •Enterprise/team features (workspace sharing) deferred to roadmap; today it's solo-focused
Target Audience

Backend developers, architects, teams using Claude for code analysis

Similar To

Cursor · Continue.dev · Sourcegraph Cody

Post Description

Hey HN. I'm David, solo dev, 20+ years shipping production systems. I built Tesseract because AI can analyze your codebase, but the results stay buried in text. Architecture is fundamentally visual — you need to see it, navigate it, drill into it. So I built a 3D canvas where AI can show you what it finds.

Tesseract is a desktop app today (cloud version coming) with a built-in MCP server. You connect it to Claude Code with one command:

claude mcp add tesseract -s user -t http http://localhost:7440/mcp

I use it for onboarding (understand a codebase without reading code), mapping (point AI at code, get a 3D diagram), exploring (navigate layers and drill into subsystems), debugging (trace data flows with animated color-coded paths), and generating (design in 3D, generate code back).

There's also a Claude Code plugin (tesseract-skills) with slash commands: /arch-codemap maps an entire codebase, /arch-flow traces data paths, /arch-detail drills into subsystems.

Works with Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Windsurf — any MCP client. Free to use. Sign up to unlock all features for 3 months.

It's early but stable. I've been dogfooding it on real projects for weeks and it's ready for other people to try.

Demo video (1min47): https://youtu.be/YqqtRv17a3M

Docs: https://tesseract.infrastellar.dev/docs

Plugin: https://github.com/infrastellar-dev/tesseract-skills

Discord: https://discord.gg/vWfW7xExUr

Happy to discuss the MCP integration, the design choices, or anything else. Would love feedback.

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