BlendCharm bridges PyCharm and Blender's extension system, giving you project scaffolding, hot-reload, manifest management, and integrated run configurations — without leaving the IDE.
Create a fully structured Blender extension repository project and/or individual extensions. BlendCharm creates the directory layout in .blendcharm, and sees run configurations automatically.
A lightweight TCP server runs inside PyCharm. Blender connects to BlendCharm and relays commands: reload extensions, execute scripts, activate themes, query Blender state. File saves trigger automatic reloads with a configurable debounce.
blender_manifest.toml is a first-class citizen. A tabbed editor covers General, Permissions, Platforms, and License fields. BlendCharm validates manifests on startup and detects content drift between project state and disk.
The BlendCharm tool window lists registered extensions with validation status, active state, and pending-deletion markers. Enable, disable, add, edit, reload, or defer deletion — all without touching Blender directly.
Cross-platform auto-detection on Windows, macOS, and Linux. BlendCharm probes installations to extract version, Python version, and user resource path. Validation runs at startup with balloon notifications for missing installations.
Browse and select from the full SPDX license list directly in the manifest editor. License details — OSI approval, FSF libre status, and full license text — are available without leaving PyCharm.
Launches Blender and loads your extension source directories. Supports auto-install of active extensions on connect and file-save triggered reload.
Runs Blender as a background batch process. Output is reported to a dedicated run console with timestamped entries.
Runs Blender as a background batch process with progress reporting. Useful for pre-submission checks without launching Blender's full UI.
All settings are available under Settings → Tools → BlendCharm.
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| RPC Host | 127.0.0.1 | Host for the TCP bridge server |
| Run RPC Port | 8888 | Port Blender's bridge script connects to |
| Auto-start RPC server | true | Start server automatically when a run config launches |
| Auto-install active extensions | true | Push active extensions to Blender on first connect |
| Auto-reload on save | true | Trigger extension reload when tracked files are saved |
| Reload debounce | 500ms | Delay before reload fires after a file save |
| Tracked file extensions | py, toml, xml | File types that trigger auto-reload (configurable) |
| Reload active only | true | Limit auto-reload to extensions currently marked active |
| Auto-delete pending on close | true | Process deferred extension deletions when the project closes |
First public release of BlendCharm. The core development loop is functional: scaffold a project, connect to a running Blender instance, manage extension manifests, and iterate with live-reload. This is an early alpha — expect rough edges, and please report issues on the project repository.
blender_manifest.toml generation via Velocity templatesblender_manifest.toml structure but may be fragile for unusual formatting.WARN level instead of DEBUG or INFO (tracked as BC-119).