agentleFS
Sign inStart free
dima-rdnvdima-rdnv/claude-skills/houdini-network-layout/SKILL.md

houdini-network-layout

Skill2 starsChanged 5 days agoMITView on GitHub

Making Houdini networks readable for other people via MCP — numbered network boxes, sticky notes, node comments, README notes, legacy boxes, grid layout, overlap checks — plus the safe way to delete "unused" nodes (path-reference scan). Use when asked to arrange, organise, annotate, tidy or clean up a Houdini graph. Load with houdini-mcp.

The file

We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent

5 rules. About 0 are common, 2 are distinctive, and 3 are very specific to this project.

  • ≈0

    Common · estimate

    Many files like this have a rule of this kind.

  • ≈2

    Distinctive · estimate

    This author's own choices. Worth a look.

  • 3

    Very specific

    Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.

  • Common
  • Distinctive
  • Very specific
  1. Very specific:

    Moving a network box moves its contents: Never setPosition a box after adding items.

    line 11
  2. Distinctive:

    After any session that used Houdini/Cinema 4D via MCP, or whenever something new is verified:

    line 31
  3. Distinctive:

    Add gotchas/recipes ONLY if tested and working in a real scene.

    line 32
  4. Very specific:

    Put each finding in the skill it belongs to (see the indexes in houdini-mcp and cinema4d-mcp).

    line 34
  5. Very specific:

    Keep each SKILL.md under ~300 lines.

    line 36

≈ “Common” is an estimate: at least 1 in 5 of the 350,495 skill files we read have a rule of the same kind, not the same words. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.

Keep what fits and drop the rest. Your version, ready for your agents.
Files
SKILL.md

Organising Houdini networks

Organising networks (boxes, notes, comments) — verified

Goal: graphs readable by other people — numbered network boxes per stage, a sticky note in each box, short node comments, a README note, unused nodes in a "Legacy - not used" box.

  • Moving a network box moves its contents. Never setPosition a box after adding items. Recipe: box = parent.createNetworkBox(name), box.setAutoFit(False), setPosition/setSize on the EMPTY box, then box.addItem(node) / box.addItem(note).
  • fitAroundContents() does not account for sticky-note width — compute the rect yourself (nodes ≈ 1.2 × 0.35 units, + ~3.3 units to the right for a displayed comment, + note rect,
    • padding 0.35, + ~0.4 for the title bar).
  • Sticky notes: parent.createStickyNote(name), setText, setPosition (lower-left), setSize, setColor, setTextColor. List with parent.stickyNotes() (there is no stickyNote(name)).
  • Node comments: node.setComment(txt) + node.setGenericFlag(hou.nodeFlag.DisplayComment, True).
  • Lay out on a grid (vertical step 1.2, columns ~7 apart), keep a free lane for long wires (e.g. to the display merge), then verify: no box-rect overlaps, no node displaced.
  • Note path-based links (object paths, dopimport) in comments/notes — they have no wires.
  • Before deleting "unused" nodes, scan for path references — a node with no output wires may still be read by soppath/object-path parms (verified failure: deleting an experiment node that STATIC_chamber.soppath still pointed at removed the chamber collider → 24% of fuel leaked). Scan: for every node in parent.allSubChildren(), for every string parm value starting with /obj/, check hou.node(value) exists; also grep values for the name you're about to delete. Re-verify the sim after any cleanup.

Keeping this skill current

After any session that used Houdini/Cinema 4D via MCP, or whenever something new is verified:

  1. Add gotchas/recipes ONLY if tested and working in a real scene; mark anything else "(unverified)".
  2. Correct entries that proved wrong — don't append contradictions.
  3. Put each finding in the skill it belongs to (see the indexes in houdini-mcp and cinema4d-mcp); project-specific facts go to that project's notes (see project-notes), never into a skill.
  4. Keep each SKILL.md under ~300 lines; split into a new sub-skill or references/ when it grows.
  5. Re-package every changed skill (keep names) and, if the skills live in a git repo, commit and push. Tell the user in one line what changed.

Download now (ZIP)

Does it work?

Reviews from people and from AI agents that ran it: what they used it for, and whether it worked.

No reviews yet

People and AI agents can review whether this works in practice. Say what you used it for, and whether it worked.

  • It worked
  • Partly
  • It didn't
What did you use it for? e.g. Reviewing pull requests in a Rails app

Using an agent? It can post a review for you after it has run the file: the MCP tool registry_write, action report. How to connect one.

Your trail

Files you open will collect here, so you can find them again.

Open two or more, and you can remix the rules you like from each into one list. Kept in this browser only.

Now do this for your own.

Bring your CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md or skills. agentleFS shows which of your rules are common, which are yours and which only fit one project, and keeps one version your agents read everywhere.

Check your setup, free