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AI-assisted SCPI setup ​

Muxit's AI chat can add a new SCPI instrument (oscilloscope, multimeter, power supply, signal generator, …) end-to-end — probe the device, look up its command set online, write the connector config, and bring it online without a restart. All three GenericScpi transports are supported: TCP/IP (LAN), Serial, and USBTMC (direct USB-B).

Subscription required

AI-assisted SCPI authoring uses Muxit's managed AI — Maker tier or higher. On Free, you have two equally good paths:

  • Add SCPI instruments by hand using the GenericScpi driver — the declarative scpi: { properties, methods } schema means most instruments are 20–40 lines of config. No code, no AI required.
  • Drive the same flow from your own AI client by pointing Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or ChatGPT at Muxit's MCP server. The probe_scpi_device, validate_connector_config, and write_connector_config tools are exposed to MCP on all tiers, including Free — your AI client uses your own provider.

See AI features by tier for the full breakdown.

Two ways to start ​

  • From the driver page. Open the Add Connector dialog, select GenericScpi, and click Set up with AI. The chat opens with a pre-filled prompt — edit the device details, hit enter, and follow along.
  • From chat. Say something like "Add my Rigol DP832 at 192.168.1.50", "Set up my Siglent SDG on COM5", or "My Rigol DS1054Z is plugged in via USB". Any mention of SCPI, a common instrument class, a well-known vendor, or USBTMC routes the turn through the SCPI-authoring flow.

What happens under the hood ​

When the AI detects SCPI-setup intent it activates the scpi-authoring tool group and enables OpenRouter's web-search plugin for that turn. You'll see the assistant use these tools in order:

  1. list_serial_ports / list_usbtmc_devices — if you didn't specify a port or a USB VID/PID, the assistant suggests candidates. list_usbtmc_devices enumerates every USB device libusb can see; the assistant picks the one whose manufacturer/product matches your instrument.
  2. list_manuals — scans workspace/manuals/ for any user-supplied programming guide matching the device. If one is there, the assistant prefers it over web search (see Upload a programming manual below).
  3. probe_scpi_device — opens a one-shot TCP, serial, or USBTMC connection, sends *IDN?, and returns {vendor, model, serial, firmware}. Failures (timeout, refused, empty response, libusb permission) come back as errors[] so the assistant can tell you what went wrong instead of silently writing a broken config.
  4. search_manual / read_manual_pages or web search — the assistant confirms exact command syntax against your uploaded manual (citing page numbers) or, if no manual is provided, looks up the programming manual on the web and cites URLs inline.
  5. validate_connector_config — parses the drafted config through the same loader the server uses at startup. Catches syntax errors, disallowed globals, missing driver field, malformed scpi schema.
  6. write_connector_config — saves the file to workspace/connectors/.
  7. reload_connectors — tears down the connector registry and re-inits the catalog so the new device appears without a server restart.

USBTMC (direct USB) instruments ​

Many benchtop instruments (Rigol DS1000Z, Keysight DSO-X, Siglent SDG/SSA, …) plug in via USB-B and talk SCPI over the USB Test & Measurement Class protocol. The AI handles these the same way as TCP / serial — tell it "my scope is plugged in via USB" and it will:

  1. Call list_usbtmc_devices to see every USB device libusb can enumerate.
  2. Pick the entry whose manufacturer/product matches your instrument (or ask you to confirm if several look plausible).
  3. Call probe_scpi_device { transport: "usbtmc", vendorId, productId }.

Platform prerequisites ​

USBTMC needs libusb to be able to open the device. On Windows, install Zadig, select your instrument from its list, and switch its driver to WinUSB. This replaces whatever NI-VISA or Keysight IO Libraries installed — if you want to use those tools again later, Zadig can switch back.

If the probe fails the assistant surfaces the relevant fix inline.

Upload a programming manual ​

For niche instruments, older models, or anything with a vendor manual behind a login, dropping the PDF into workspace/manuals/ gives the AI the exact source of truth — more reliable and much cheaper than web search.

  • Where: workspace/manuals/ (create it if it doesn't exist — it's a standard workspace subdirectory). Per-device subfolders are optional but tidy for multi-instrument labs:

    workspace/manuals/
  rigol-ds1054z/DS1000Z_ProgrammingGuide.pdf
  siglent-sdg1032x/sdg_programming_manual.pdf
  notes.md

  • Formats: text-based PDFs, plain .txt, and .md work. Scanned/image-only PDFs can't be read — the assistant will warn you and fall back to web search.

  • How the AI uses it: search_manual runs a substring query and returns excerpts with page numbers (e.g. "p. 84: :TIM:SCAL <scale_val> — sets the horizontal time base scale"). read_manual_pages pulls a specific page range when the excerpt looked promising and the assistant wants more context.

  • Privacy: manuals stay on your machine. Only the extracted excerpts the assistant decides to quote are sent to the LLM, same as any other tool result.

  • Cache: the first search_manual call extracts the PDF to a sibling <file>.extracted.txt so subsequent queries are instant. Safe to delete — it'll be rebuilt on the next call.

Tips ​

  • Tell the AI what the device is. "My new Siglent SDG1032X on 192.168.1.42" is much more useful than "add a new device" — the assistant can jump straight to probing the right IP.
  • Probe results that don't match what you expected mean either the IP/port is wrong, the instrument is in a non-SCPI mode, or the line terminator disagrees. The assistant will surface the raw IDN verbatim so you can see what the device actually reported.
  • Check cited URLs. The LLM can misread a command table. If something doesn't look right, paste a relevant section of the manual back into chat and ask for a corrected draft.
  • Smoke test afterwards. Ask "read the output voltage" or similar — the AI uses read_property against the new connector to prove the wiring works.

Requires ​

  • Maker tier license or higher (same gate as general AI chat).
  • Web search is backed by OpenRouter's built-in web plugin (Exa), billed at roughly $4 per 1000 results against the account running the Muxit proxy. For a single instrument setup this is typically a few cents.

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