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Blender Add-on (Extension) Development

A development skill for building Blender 5.x add-ons as extensions, covering manifest, UI classes, CLI build/install, headless testing, and publishing.

Dev & CodingAdvanced★ 584⑂ 48AI score 9/10Last updated: Oct 19, 2026

What it does

  • Guides you through a valid blender_manifest.toml (id, tagline ≤64 chars, SPDX license, blender_version_min) starting from a CI-validated template.
  • Enforces class naming conventions (MYTOOL_OT_, _PT_, _MT_, _PG_, _AP_, _UL_) and my_tool.verb_noun operator ids.
  • Encodes post-5.0 realities: bgl removal, bpy.props as attributes rather than dict entries, privatized bundled modules, no user site-packages.
  • Runs blender --command extension validate/build/install-file, headless operator tests with temp_override, and preps extensions.blender.org submissions.

Who it's for

  • Developers writing add-ons for Blender 4.2–5.x or migrating legacy bl_info add-ons to the extension format.
  • Tool authors who must bundle third-party Python packages as .whl files.
  • Technical artists implementing GPU overlays or long-running modal/timer operations.

Examples

  1. "Make a minimal add-on with one N-panel button and build the zip" → template copy, manifest, CLI build.
  2. "My bgl viewport overlay broke in 5.0" → rewrite with gpu + gpu_extras.batch.
  3. "I want to ship an add-on that uses numpy/requests" → wheels directory, permissions block, bpy.app.online_access guard.

· · · Install guide · · ·

Try it now, no install

Paste this into Claude to use the skill without installing anything.

Read the instructions in this file and follow them to help me:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/EL4CTEO/blender-skills/HEAD/skills/blender-addon-development/SKILL.md

What I want: (describe your task here)

If Claude can't open the link, open it yourself and paste the contents instead.

↓ If it works for you, download the ZIP below and install it. Then it runs on its own — no pasting each time.

Install in the Claude app (no terminal)
  1. Download the ZIP with the button below.
  2. In Claude, open Settings → Capabilities and turn on 'Code execution and file creation'. (one time)
  3. Go to Customize → Skills → + → 'Upload a skill' and upload the ZIP.
↓ Download ZIP
Install in Claude Code

Let Claude do it — paste this into Claude Code

Install the skill I found on AI Skill Mart.
Copy the skills/blender-addon-development folder from the GitHub repo EL4CTEO/blender-skills into my ~/.claude/skills/blender-addon-development/.
When it's done, tell me in one line what this skill can do.

Install with a command instead

git clone https://github.com/EL4CTEO/blender-skills.git && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r blender-skills/skills/blender-addon-development ~/.claude/skills/

⚠ This is a third-party skill. Check the source repository before installing.

  1. Open a terminal.
  2. Create the skills folder: mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
  3. Clone the repo: git clone https://github.com/EL4CTEO/blender-skills.git
  4. Copy the skill: cp -r blender-skills/skills/blender-addon-development ~/.claude/skills/
  5. Also copy the referenced blender-core skill the same way, since the execution model lives there.
  6. Restart Claude Code and ask something like "create a Blender add-on" to trigger it.
  7. For real validation/builds you need Blender 4.2+ (ideally 5.x) with the blender command available on your PATH.
View source on GitHub ↗License: MIT