houdini-lookdev

houdini-lookdev is a skill for Claude Code from dcc-mcp/dcc-mcp-houdini. It costs 64 tokens per session (939 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A Houdini toolkit for editing shader networks, the connected nodes that control how surfaces look, and for storing material parameter snapshots.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to list materials and assignments, read or set shader parameters, connect or disconnect shader inputs, reset materials, and save, load, list, or delete evaluated parameter presets.
Why use it?
It helps inspect and change shader parameters and connections while accounting for differences between Houdini shader types such as MaterialX and Principled Shader.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: allowed-tools in frontmatter.

Good fit Use it to list materials and assignments, read or set shader parameters, connect or disconnect shader inputs, reset materials, and save, load, list, or delete evaluated parameter presets.

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Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/dcc-mcp/dcc-mcp-houdini/houdini-lookdev
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add dcc-mcp/dcc-mcp-houdini --skill houdini-lookdev
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/dcc-mcp/dcc-mcp-houdini

Made for: Claude Code.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for houdini-lookdev

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/dcc-mcp/dcc-mcp-houdini/houdini-lookdev/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/dcc-mcp/dcc-mcp-houdini/houdini-lookdev)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/dcc-mcp/dcc-mcp-houdini/houdini-lookdev"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/dcc-mcp/dcc-mcp-houdini/houdini-lookdev/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for houdini-lookdev

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/dcc-mcp/dcc-mcp-houdini/houdini-lookdev"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/dcc-mcp/dcc-mcp-houdini/houdini-lookdev.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 64 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 939 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00064 $0.00939
Opus 5.5 $0.00026 $0.00376
Sonnet 5.5 $0.00013 $0.00188
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00094

Measured yesterday against content hash c7506fb9a503, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

houdini-lookdev scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 13 executable files (scripts/_lookdev_common.py, scripts/connect_shader.py, scripts/delete_preset.py, …), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

src/dcc_mcp_houdini/skills/houdini-lookdev/SKILL.md · 77 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 77 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

houdini-lookdev

Typed lookdev tools that complement houdini-materials (which creates and assigns materials). Most tools are affinity: main; the filesystem-only preset tools list_presets / delete_preset are affinity: any.

Tool groups

  • lookdev-query (read-only): list_materials, list_assignments, get_material_parms, get_shader_connections.
  • lookdev-edit: set_material_parms, connect_shader, disconnect_shader (destructive), reset_material (destructive).
  • presets: save_preset, list_presets, load_preset, delete_preset — JSON files under ~/.dcc-mcp/houdini/material_presets/ (override with DCC_MCP_HOUDINI_MATERIAL_PRESET_DIR).

Context limitations

  • Karma / MaterialX: MaterialX subnets live under a matnet/mat library; pass the exact material_path (the surface output node). Parameter names differ from principledshader, so prefer get_material_parms to discover names before set_material_parms.
  • VOP networks: connect_shader / disconnect_shader operate on node input slots; use get_shader_connections to read inputNames() first.
  • Presets store evaluated parameter values only (not node graphs); loading onto a different material_type is allowed but reported as a warning.

Parameter application: errors is a real list

set_material_parms and load_preset apply overrides with this package's set_parameters, which probes each name against the node and returns (applied, errors). Names the node does not expose are reported in errors with a reason.

A null (None) value is never a valid parameter value: it is rejected into errors rather than coerced (coercion would otherwise write the literal "None" to a string parm or False to a toggle). Valid sibling overrides in the same call still apply, and load_preset fails instead of reporting success when every preset parameter is invalid.

Do not "clean up" errors. It is populated, not a constant empty list. A parameter field is only dead when the tool routes overrides through a helper that returns an empty second list unconditionally while the underlying parameter_edit fails the call. houdini-gsplat-relighting reports the same genuine second list as unsupported_parameters. Neither package may be swept into a dead-field removal.

Read the full file on GitHub · 77 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday Changed · +6 lines c7506fb9a503
  2. 1mo ago Changed · +14 lines 123f77fba60b
  3. 1mo ago First seen · 57 lines · 64 tokens per session scan A 3aa5c6888dd6

Subscribe to this mod's changes

houdini-lookdev is a skill published in the GitHub repository dcc-mcp/dcc-mcp-houdini (18 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 64 tokens to every session and 939 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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