Author buildingSMART IDS from Plain Language

Short answer: With Archi Automate you describe a model requirement in plain language, and the ids_generate operation turns it into a schema-valid buildingSMART IDS 1.0 file. It grounds the facets in real classification codes via a buildingSMART Data Dictionary (bSDD) lookup, proves the result by round-tripping it through the connector's own IDS reader, and can validate your open model against it in the same call. No hand-written XML required.

Why authoring IDS by hand is painful

An Information Delivery Specification (IDS) is buildingSMART's machine-readable way of stating exactly what data a model must carry: which elements, which properties, which classifications, which values. It is the contract between the people who request information and the people who deliver it. That is a great idea in principle, and a fiddly one in practice.

The fiddliness comes from the format. IDS is XML, and every specification splits into two halves that are easy to confuse. The applicability half says which elements a rule applies to ("all external walls"). The requirement half says what those elements must satisfy ("must carry a fire rating property with a value"). Get the boundary wrong and your specification either checks nothing or checks everything. On top of that, each facet (entity, attribute, property, classification, material) has its own cardinality, datatype, and restriction syntax. Authoring a handful of rules by hand is tolerable. Authoring a full project's worth, consistently, across disciplines, is where teams quietly give up and fall back to PDF checklists that no machine can enforce.

Describe the requirement in plain language

Archi Automate lets you skip the XML and state the requirement the way you would say it to a colleague. You write something like "every load-bearing external wall must have a fire resistance rating and a Uniclass classification" into your AI client, and the connector composes governed operations at runtime to turn that structured, plain-language requirement into a formal specification.

The key word is structured. You are not asking the model to guess your intent from a vague sentence; you are stating the applicability target, the properties you require, and any value constraints, and the connector maps each of those to the correct IDS facet. The applicability/requirement split that trips people up by hand is handled for you, because the operation knows which clause belongs on which side.

Ground the facets in real bSDD codes

A specification is only as trustworthy as the codes it references. If a facet points at a classification value that does not exist, the IDS is syntactically valid but practically useless. This is where ifc_bsdd_search earns its place. It queries the buildingSMART Data Dictionary (bSDD) for authoritative classification codes across IFC, Uniclass, CCI, and national systems, so the facets in your IDS are anchored to codes that real validators and real downstream tools recognise.

In practice you ask for the right classification for, say, an external wall, the bSDD lookup returns the authoritative Uniclass or IFC code, and that exact code goes into the classification facet. You stop inventing code strings from memory and start citing the dictionary. That single step removes one of the most common reasons a "finished" IDS quietly fails in review.

Generate a schema-valid IDS, proven by round-trip

Once the requirement is described and the codes are grounded, ids_generate produces a buildingSMART IDS 1.0 file. What makes this more than a template fill is the proof step: the connector immediately reads its own output back through the IDS reader it uses to consume specifications. If the generated file does not parse cleanly as valid IDS, you find out inside the same operation rather than three weeks later when a partner's validator rejects it. Round-tripping the file through the reader is a self-check that the XML is genuinely schema-valid and not merely plausible-looking.

Because the connector treats this as a governed operation, you stay in control of when anything is written. Under the default Read only posture you can compose and inspect the specification without touching disk; Preview shows you what will be written; Allow changes commits it. Every step is audited, so the path from sentence to file is reviewable rather than a black box.

Validate the model in the same breath

Authoring a specification is half the job; checking a model against it is the other half. ids_generate can optionally validate your open model against the freshly authored IDS in the same call. That means the loop from "state a requirement" to "see which elements pass or fail" closes in one conversation, not across three separate tools.

If you already have specifications written elsewhere, the same validation discipline applies; see our walkthrough on validating IFC against IDS with AI for how the connector reads an existing IDS and reports conformance. The point is that authoring and checking are two ends of one workflow, and Archi Automate keeps them together.

From IDS to coordination

A validation result is most useful when it travels. Once you know which elements fail a specification, you want those findings in front of the people who can fix them, in a format their software understands. The natural hand-off is BCF, the buildingSMART format for coordination issues. Our guide on turning IFC validation into BCF in one step shows how failing elements become trackable issues, and remediating IFC with AI covers closing the loop by fixing the model itself.

Classification grounding also feeds wider workflows. If your project standard expects Uniclass or bSDD-backed coding throughout, the same dictionary lookups that anchor your IDS facets can drive bulk classification; see classifying IFC with Uniclass and bSDD.

Vendor-neutral by design

Everything above runs on openBIM. The Archi Automate openBIM connector is headless: it needs no CAD application and no licence, and it works on IFC produced by any tool, whether that originated in Autodesk Revit 2025-2027, Rhino 8 from Robert McNeel & Associates, Graphisoft Archicad 29, or anything else that exports clean IFC. IDS, IDS validation, and BCF are buildingSMART standards, so the specification you author here is portable to any conformant validator your partners run.

For teams who also drive native authoring tools through the same AI client, the connector spans both worlds. See how connecting Claude to your AEC tools works, and the broader MCP approach for IFC and openBIM that ties the headless and native sides together.

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Archi Automate is AI for AEC: one Windows installer, a 14-day trial with no key required. Describe a requirement, ground it in bSDD, and let the connector author a schema-valid IDS you can trust. Explore Archi Automate →