vibe-sketcher

For renamed products, supported legacy commands, and unchanged package/state identities, see the naming compatibility guide.

Draw a structure or a reaction, and get the figure and the calculation input from the same sketch. In the browser, in a desktop window, or through an API that agents can drive.

vibe-sketcher is a 2D chemical structure and reaction sketcher. It renders SVG and PNG publication graphics, exchanges structure files, turns a sketch into a 3D structure and a ready-to-run input for vibe-qc and ORCA, and exposes everything through a Python SDK, a CLI, a REST API and an MCP server. It is a companion to vibe-qc, vibe-viewer and vibe-scheduler, and runs without them.

Tip

This site documents vibe-sketcher 0.6.3, Negishi’s Funnel.

Tip

Current implementation: testing version. Draw or import structures, reactions and mechanisms; generate 3D geometries; write vibe-qc and ORCA calculation inputs; and submit and track jobs through an installed vibe-queue. The browser app also runs in the Electron desktop shell. These features are implemented now. Start with the quickstart or follow the guides below.

Save documents as QVF with the optional qvf-writer integration, or as .vsk without it. Naming, queue execution and the vibe-viewer hand-off need their corresponding optional integrations. The source desktop launcher is available; public release packages and the remaining desktop work are tracked separately in installation and the roadmap.

Sketch, submit, calculate, analyze

Step	Available now	Guide
Sketch and prepare	Draw structures and reactions, generate 3D geometries, and write supported vibe-qc, ORCA or QCSchema inputs.	3D structures, input writers
Submit	Submit prepared inputs to an installed, configured vibe-scheduler and follow or cancel recorded runs.	Inputs and calculations
Calculate	The selected quantum-chemistry program executes the job; input generation itself does not run a calculation.	Integration setup
Analyze	Send a prepared structure to vibe-viewer or open the calculation’s supported result files there.	vibe-viewer hand-off, viewer workflows

For a direct local calculation, run the generated input without the queue. The same preparation and submission operations are available through the CLI, Python SDK, REST API and MCP tools.

Documentation

Getting started

• Installation
  • Choose an installation route
  • Self-contained macOS app
  • What you need for a source or wheel installation
  • Install a release wheel
  • Install from a checkout
  • Update a checkout
  • Optional extras
  • The browser app and the desktop shell
  • Browser acceptance tests
  • Checking installed integrations
  • Naming
  • Publication backend
• Desktop app
  • What the self-contained app leaves out
  • Install and first run
  • Open, save and recent files
  • Settings and local files
  • Updates and quitting
  • Packaged macOS acceptance
  • Self-contained Linux desktop
• Quickstart
  • Draw, import, save, export
  • Generate 3D and write calculation inputs
  • Submit, calculate and analyze
  • Run the desktop app
  • The same from the command line
  • Names
• Troubleshooting
  • Startup and the browser
  • Imports, names and geometry
  • Saving and exporting
  • Inputs and queue runs
  • API conflicts and reporting a problem
• Tutorials
  • Choose a learning path
  • Explore every implemented feature
• Runnable examples
  • Pick an example without extra services
  • Download a starting document
  • Named reactions and all-feature examples
  • Command line
  • Python SDK
  • REST API
  • An agent using MCP
• Figures for papers
  • Draw once, in the document’s style
  • Number the compounds
  • Export the figure
  • Shapes and TLC plates
  • Highlights
  • Abbreviations
  • Polymer repeat units
  • R-groups
  • Materials at a bond end
  • Figures for office programs
  • Render a paper’s figures at once
  • What to send a journal
• The browser app
  • Documents
  • Drawing
  • What the server reads from the drawing
  • Cleanup scope and vibe-viewer
  • Stereodescriptors
  • Stoichiometry
  • Elemental analysis and descriptors
  • 3D structures
  • In 3D, in vibe-viewer
  • Inputs
  • Names
  • Working with an agent
  • Named reactions
• Compound, fragment and named-reaction library
  • Release availability and paper use
  • Compounds and fragments
  • What is included
  • Completion status and the list of work to add
  • SDK, CLI, REST and MCP
• Drawing cleanup
  • Conventions and coverage
  • Refinement and refusal
  • Large molecules
• Nanostructures
  • Build a nanotube in the browser
  • Nanotubes
  • Graphene, ribbons and fullerenes
  • Pictures in figures and on the canvas
  • Identity, charge and spin
  • Every interface
• Surfaces, electrodes and nanoparticles
  • Add, edit and graft
  • Other interfaces and formats
• Electrode reactions
  • Solids given by their formula
  • Draw one
  • Check the balance
  • Every interface
• Redox and finite-cluster binding recipes
  • Aqueous reduction potentials
  • Finite-cluster binding
  • Interfaces
  • Scientific checks and their limits
• Tidy scheme
  • What it does
  • What it refuses
  • Measuring a scheme
• Results and reaction energies
  • In the browser
  • Acceptance and limitations
  • SDK, CLI and REST
  • Energy tables
  • Spectra
  • NMR shifts
  • Accepted campaign results
  • Inspect a calculation in vibe-viewer
• Working with agents
  • One document, two editors
  • Select the session and document explicitly
  • Files and saving
  • Tools
  • Named reactions

Reference

• The document format
  • In a QVF file
  • Two layers
  • Species identity and editing consequences
  • A minimal document
  • Fields
  • What validation checks
  • Reading and writing
  • File-writing guarantees
  • JSON serialization from Python
  • Versioning
  • Retrieved run results
  • Schematic surfaces
• File formats
  • Choose an output
  • Supported formats
  • PNG and PDF publication figures
  • chemfig for LaTeX
  • CDXML for ChemDraw
  • Peptides and nucleic acids
  • Enumerate R-groups
• Input writers
  • The writers
  • Discover capabilities and check a request
  • Coordinates and units
  • vibe-qc
  • ORCA
  • Writing an input
  • Reaction paths (NEB)
  • JSON specifications and geometry persistence
  • Freeze an atom during optimisation
  • Adding a writer
• Calculation runs
  • Inputs, jobs, runs and results
  • Readiness and submission
  • Resources
  • Status and cancellation
  • Retrieve and keep results
• Command line
  • Discover options and select species
  • Convert files and text
  • Exit statuses and result protection
  • Browser server and file-backed editing
  • Desktop launch
  • Named reactions
• REST API
  • Documents
  • Document response fields
  • Revisions and concurrent edits
  • Request body shapes
  • A first request
  • Updating species metadata
  • Validation responses
  • Operations without an open document
  • Named reactions
• Python API
  • Prepare a molecule and an input
  • Choose the operation
  • Load a document or interpret its drawing
  • Handle failures
  • Module reference
  • Named reactions
• Security and input bounds
  • What is trusted
  • The local server
  • What a file may hold
  • Saving
  • Directories
  • Updating
  • Desktop startup
  • Still open
• Performance and accessibility checks
  • The corpus
  • The harness
  • First measurement (2026-10-22)
  • After the cleanup limits (2026-10-22)
  • Budgets
  • In the browser
  • Keyboard and screen readers
  • Canvas limitations
• Release-paper evaluation protocol
  • Identify the inputs before measuring
  • Record every declared operation
  • Scientific campaign and independent replay

The project

• Roadmap
• vibe-sketcher and vibe-viewer: responsibilities
• Canvas spike: Ketcher behind the adapter
• Release codenames
• Licences
• Release process
• Changelog

Where things live

Project	What it is	Documentation
vibe-sketcher	This sketcher	you are here
vibe-qc	The quantum-chemistry program; the naming engine the sketcher reuses	vibe-qc.com/docs/
vibe-viewer	The 3D viewer the sketcher hands structures to	vibe-qc.com/vibe-view/docs/
vibe-scheduler (vq)	Job scheduler; the [queue] extra talks to it	vibe-qc.com/vibe-queue/docs/
qvf	The result archive format the sketcher exports	its repository