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Why the script, not the file, should be your model
A feature tree records what someone clicked. A script records what they meant. That difference decides how expensive your next revision is.
Aikyora · Jul 10, 2026 · 6 min read
Open a CAD file somebody else built and the first question is always the same: which feature do I touch to change this dimension? The geometry is right there, but the reasoning that produced it is not. It was in the head of whoever drew it, and it left with them.
What a script keeps that a tree does not
When the model is a CadQuery or FreeCAD script, the parameters have names. Bore, wall thickness, hole pitch and count are variables, not consequences. Reading the script tells you what was intended, and changing a value tells you what happens next, because the whole model re-runs from source.
Revisions stop being expensive
A revision on a scripted model is a parameter change and a re-run. There is no feature-tree archaeology, no broken downstream references, and no quiet divergence between the model and the drawing, because the drawing is generated from the same solid.
It also makes the model reviewable
A script diff shows what changed between two revisions in a way nobody has to interpret. For work that has to be defensible later, that record is worth as much as the geometry.