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The panel sits glued to the side of the Grasshopper window and moves with it. Open it with PANEL on any Alien component, or double-click the component. It follows whichever component you select.
Prefer it docked inside Rhino? Click the dock button in the panel’s header, or set "panel": "rhino" in Settings.

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The header

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The selected component

When you select an Alien component, the panel shows its name, language, status and any error, then:
  • Describe box: describe a new component (nothing selected) or a change to the selected one. See Describe a component.
  • Requests: every request you made, with each attempt, its outcome and what it cost.
  • Inputs: the current values.
  • Code: the script itself, with Open in editor and Show file.
  • Earlier versions: every version Alien kept. Restore brings one back.

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Project agent

New since 0.02-alpha: arrives in the next beta.
Switch the panel to Project agent and ask in plain words:
The agent sees your whole canvas, including what you’ve selected, and keeps a memory for each Grasshopper file (ask it to “remember” a fact about the project). It searches the library first and suggests or places components you already have. When nothing fits, it describes a new one. It places, wires, sets inputs, edits scripts, removes components, checks results and looks at the viewport to check its own work. Each step shows as a chip as it goes.
  • It never presses a Generate button, which spends credit, unless you ask it to.
  • Stop cancels. Cmd/Ctrl+Z undoes what it changed.
  • It costs about US$0.03–0.15 a request with the default model, Claude Sonnet 5.5, more when it looks at the viewport.

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Library

Every component in your script folder with a header, sorted into categories: Site & context, Building elements, Massing & objects, Entourage, Materials, Views & drawings, Data & lists, Geometry, Analysis and Utilities (the next beta adds Create, for the generators). It’s the panel’s Nodes tab. Search, filter by category, and click a component to place it on the canvas. + New blank node starts from scratch. Ready-made components carry a suite tag. In the next beta, the library opens on Start here: a blank component, 3D object, 2D object, symbol, material, display mode, views, layout and exploded axo.
  1. A # CATEGORY: line in the script’s header, if there is one. Described components get one automatically.
  2. Otherwise a model sorts it once, from the header comments only, never the code. The answer is cached in .alien/library.json.
  3. Until then, a keyword guess.
Set "classify": "off" in Settings to sort by keywords only.

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Objects

What the generators made, with thumbnails: 3D objects, materials and drawings. (In 0.02-alpha this tab is called Generated.) For each one you can:
  • Bake block: an object or drawing goes into Rhino as a block, at real size, on the Alien assets layer.
  • Add material: a texture becomes a real-size render material on the selected objects.
  • Place node: place the component that made it, with the same inputs. It comes back free from the cache.
In the next beta this becomes Objects, and adds 2D objects, symbols, display modes and building types: the wall, slab, roof, stair and balustrade types, doors, windows and section profiles you saved with a type component’s Save button. Copy record copies a type as JSON.

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Help

? opens Help. It opens by itself the first time, when no key is linked. Connect OpenRouter takes you through it step by step: create an account, add credit, create a key with a limit, paste it, and Link key. Alien checks the key with OpenRouter before saving it, and shows the credit left, the key’s own limit and when it expires. Check credit and Remove are there later. The panel only ever shows the first and last few characters of your key.

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Themes

⚙ opens the themes: Alien, Cursor Dark, One Dark, Dracula, Monokai, Nord, Tokyo Night, Solarized Dark, Solarized Light, High Contrast, Light and GitHub Light. Or pick your own background, text and accent colours. Your components, the canvas text box and the panel all follow it.