The AI assistant in ForgeIEC Studio

What is it?

ForgeIEC Studio ships with a built-in AI assistant — directly in the main window, in the right-side tab AI Assistant. You can talk to it in plain English (or German), and it can operate ForgeIEC Studio itself:

Create variables and assign addresses
Write or modify POU code (Structured Text)
Compile programs and deploy them to the PLC
Watch live values while the PLC runs
Capture time series on the oscilloscope

The assistant does not have to be a cloud service — it can run entirely on your own machine, no internet required, using a local AI program (e.g. LM Studio or llama.cpp server).

Several characters for different tasks

The assistant comes with multiple personas — each with its own job and its own permission profile. You switch between them as tabs in the AI panel:

Persona	What it does
Blacksmith Master	The foreman — writes code, compiles, deploys. Default for active development.
Reviewer	Reads your code and suggests improvements. Changes nothing on its own.
Doc	Writes comments and descriptions for your program.
Monitor	Only observes the running PLC — perfect for diagnostics. No changes possible.
Trainee	Same as the Foreman, but every action must be confirmed by you individually. For onboarding new staff or first tests.

Details: The personas in detail.

Safety — the short version

The AI assistant cannot accidentally damage your running plant. Three layers protect you:

The default install is safe. When you install ForgeIEC fresh from the APT repository, the AI can only read. Creating variables, compiling, and deploying are all switched off.
Enabling has to be deliberate. To allow write actions, you have to install a special version of ForgeIEC Studio — that is a real hardware-like separation, not a checkbox someone clicks by accident.
The operator decides every action. Even in the enabled version, ForgeIEC Studio asks a question for every change:
“Add Position variable with address %MD100? (yes / cancel)” Only with your confirmation does it actually happen.

More: Security model.

Getting started

Start ForgeIEC Studio and select the AI Assistant tab in the right-side dock.
Enter the server address — where is your AI program running?
- Locally on the same machine: usually http://localhost:1234/v1 (LM Studio default).
- On the company network: the address your IT gave you.
Select the model in the right drop-down — e.g. qwen3-coder-30b, gpt-4o-mini, claude-opus-4-7.
Pick a persona — for the first session, Blacksmith Master is right.
Send a first request, in plain English:
“Create a variable Pressure_1 as REAL at address %MD200. With Bellows export.”

The assistant will create the variable, ask a confirmation question (“yes / cancel”), and after your approval it appears in the Variables tab.

Further topics

The personas in detail — what each character may concretely do
Daily operation — input tricks, emergency stop, fast mode
What the AI can do — actions overview in plain terms
Connecting multiple workstations — Team mode, taking on coworkers, the trust chain
Security model — how the protection works in detail

The AI is a tool. You decide.

blacksmith@forgeiec.io