Skills

Capital Topology Design Association

Skill capital-topology-design-association. Associate functional (logical) designs with a Capital topology design, so a topology stops reporting zero conductors and becomes routable. Covers the one command that does it (Associate Logical Designs, on Automate > Wiring, reachable by pressing the space bar), its two modes (individual design revisions, or a whole build list), the numbers that prove it worked, and the five plausible wrong doors that cost a session: the Working Set picker that offers designs or a build list and changes nothing, Set Active on a build list, Manage Designs & Effectivity whose OK never enables, the Build button that is really the Report Builder, and Query and Generate Design which cannot target an existing topology. Use for any Capital topology that gathers no wires, "0 inline(s) with connectivity", getAssociatedFunctionalDesigns returning zero, Capital Wiring Integrator or Systems Integrator design association, or before concluding that a topology ships without functional designs.

Provenance is marked throughout. EXERCISED came back from a real run on this estate (Capital Logic Designer 2512 on MARTINI-GAMING, project Quick Start > Aerospace > Aerospace Platform Interactive, topology Commercial Aircraft:A:Alternate:Overall, 2026-09-01). DERIVED was read out of the shipped Capital documentation and is marked where it has not been run here.

Recorded after a session that spent several hours and five hypotheses on a topology that was one menu command away from working the whole time. Four separate searches of context menus, ribbon dropdowns and dialogs missed it. One documentation search answered it outright. That is the main lesson and it is section 7.

1. The answer, first

EXERCISED.

Open the topology design in Capital Logic Designer.
Press the SPACE BAR.
Type: Associate Logical
Take the first hit: Automate -> Wiring -> Associate Logical Designs...
In the Associate Wiring Designs dialog:
    Managed by Build List  ->  <your build list>      (or None, see section 3)
Click OK.

That is the whole recipe. Everything below is why the other doors are shut, and how to prove it worked.

The command's own status-bar text is the confirmation that you are in the right place:

Add/Remove associated functional designs to this topology design

2. Where the command lives, and why you will not find it by browsing

Ribbon path: Automate tab -> Wiring dropdown -> Associate Logical Designs... (the sibling entry is Associate Signals).

⚠ It is not on any of these, all checked EXERCISED:

the topology design's right-click context menu in the project tree
the topology plane's context menu
the schematic or wiring design context menus
the build list's context menu
the Workflow ribbon tab, including the Platform dropdown

Use the space bar. Capital's command palette is titled Search Ribbon. It matches on the full ribbon path, so typing Associate Logical returns Automate->Wiring->Associate Logical Designs... as the first hit and then navigates the ribbon for you. This is strictly better than hunting, and it is the access route the vendor documentation gives first.

⚠ A stale repaint can hide the tab. Capital left an unpainted region at the top-left of the screen covering the ribbon's tab strip: only Drawing and Window were visible, while Capital, Home, Automate, Workflow, 3D and Analysis were behind it. Automate is where this command lives, so the band hid exactly the thing being looked for. Minimise and restore did not clear it, and neither did RedrawWindow with RDW_INVALIDATE | RDW_ERASE | RDW_ALLCHILDREN | RDW_UPDATENOW. Moving the window away from 0,0 did. WindowFromPoint over the black area returned Capital's own frame, which is what ruled out another window sitting on top. If a Capital ribbon looks like it is missing tabs, move the window before concluding a command is absent.

3. The dialog: two modes

EXERCISED. The dialog is Associate Wiring Designs. Source: Capital Logic Designer User Guide, Capital Wiring Integrator > Capital Wiring Integrator Dialog Box and Field Reference.

Field	Behaviour
Managed by Build List	Pick a build list and you enter managed mode: the association is managed by that build list and its design revisions populate the Associated Designs window. Pick None to manage designs individually.
Add associated designs	Opens the Add Selected Logical Design dialog. Enabled only when Managed by Build List is None.
Remove associated designs	Removes the selected association. Enabled only when Managed by Build List is None.
Associated Designs window	What is currently associated. Icons mark rows that will be added or removed when you click OK.
All / Changed / To be	Filter: everything, only the pending adds and removes, or the post-OK state.

So both halves of "select the designs, or a build list that contains the designs" are real, and they are mutually exclusive: the Add and Remove buttons are dead while a build list is selected. If someone reports that they cannot add a design, check that dropdown first.

An empty Associated Designs window is itself the diagnosis. It is the fastest confirmation that a topology has no associated functional designs, and it needs no plugin and no API call.

4. Proving it worked, by effect

Never report this from the dialog closing. Read the conductors back.

EXERCISED, before and after, on the same topology in the same session:

Reading	Before	After
`getAssociatedFunctionalDesigns()` size	0	7
Topology signals	0	1, carrying 103 functional conductors
Wires across associated designs	0	101
Inline connectors with connectivity	0	4

Individual conductors come back addressable, which is the real test:

design 'Subsystem A' wires=51 shields=0 | NOT gathered: nets=0 grounds=0 multicores=0
wire 'Front Fuse - Right-5226-18' Harness='null' pinOwners=2 ends=[J200 P127]
wire 'Flight Controls - Right-5246-20' Harness='null' pinOwners=2 ends=[P126 P117]

inline(s) with connectivity is the number that matters for routing, not the wire count. A Capital router walks harness to bundles to nodes to connector and gates on connector.isInline(), so a topology with wires but zero live inlines still has nothing to route through.

DERIVED, from the documented Results of the action, and consistent with what was seen:

the Wiring Browser lists devices, connectors, multicores, splices and wires from the associated designs
a logical device whose name matches a topology slot is placed in that slot
an inline plug or receptacle connector whose name matches one in the topology diagram is associated automatically
wires associated with bundles appear under Unassigned, or under Signals if grouped
unplaced or unrouted items are dimmed
the Sync tab carries any messages or errors from the action. Check it; a clean run leaves it empty.

5. The five wrong doors

All EXERCISED. Each is plausible, each looks like the right feature, and each cost real time.

Door	What it actually is	Tell
Working Set (`Workflow > Working Set`)	Its picker is titled Design Revision/Build List Selection and genuinely offers designs or a build list, which matches the description of the real command almost word for word. It scopes what you are working on.	Adding the build list and the topology to the working set left `getAssociatedFunctionalDesigns()` at zero, across a full close and reopen of the design.
Set Active on a build list	Makes the build list active (the tree node goes bold). Real feature, wrong one.	No change to the associated-design count.
Manage Designs & Effectivity	Manages design revisions and effectivity, not association. It sits on the topology's context menu right beside `Disassociate Designs...`, which makes it look like the counterpart.	Its OK button never enables, under every control tried: design open vs closed, working set empty vs populated, wiring vs schematic design added, Revise checked vs unchecked, and even opened on a build list where it lists all members correctly. See section 6.
`Workflow > Build`	The Report Builder. Plugin Type, Name, Version, Plugin Description.	Nothing to do with designs. The status bar says Report Builder.
`Query and Generate Design`	Generates a new design by querying content out of existing ones.	Its `Design Type` list offers Logic, Harness and Integrator only, with no Topology option, and its Design tab creates a new design in a parent folder. Nothing anywhere targets an existing design, so it can never modify a topology. Also gated behind an author-supplied entity query, so `Generate Design` stays disabled until you invent one.

⚠ Disassociate Designs... being present on the topology context menu proves nothing about whether an association exists. It is enabled regardless. Do not read it as evidence.

6. If OK is greyed out, it is a permission, not a licence

DERIVED, from Capital Access Manager User Guide, Administering Domains, Roles and Users > Permissions, article access-manager/edit-project-user-permissions. Not yet proven by flipping a permission here.

Capital gates these actions per project, per user:

Permission	Relevant actions it controls
Shared Objects	`Manage Designs & Effectivity`, `Query and Generate Design`, `Generate Logical Designs`, `Revise And Associate Multiple Designs Web Service`
Effectivity	Editing Effectivity in Manage Designs & Effectivity dialog
Build Lists	`Associate Logical Designs`, `Edit Build List`, `Delete Build List`, `Create Build List from Effectivity`
Edit Design	`Create New Design`, `Schematic Generator: Query and Generate Design`, and note that without it a design opens read-only and edit actions are disabled or fail on execution

⚠ Check the permission before you blame the licence. On this estate a permanently disabled OK button was reasoned into "a licence or permission gate" and promoted to the leading explanation. Chris checked the licensing directly: the environment runs the mentorall file, so there is no entitlement gate at all. That was a caveat presented as a constraint without being checked against the environment, which is the exact failure the house rules warn about. A greyed control is evidence of a precondition, not evidence of which precondition.

7. The method lesson

Four searches of the UI failed. One documentation search succeeded immediately.

The capital-docs MCP server carries the shipped Capital knowledge base. The articles that answer this question, by slug:

logic-designer/associating-logical-designs-with-the-topological-design     <- the procedure
logic-designer/associate-wiring-designs-dialog-box                        <- the field reference
systems-integrator/associating-logical-designs-with-the-topological-design
systems-integrator/associate-logical-designs-dialog-box
systems-integrator/replacing-a-logical-design-association
3d-electrical-design/associating-wiring-designs-with-the-3d-electrical-context
access-manager/edit-project-user-permissions                              <- the permission table

A search for associate functional design topology design returns the first of these in the top three hits. Search the vendor documentation before the third UI hypothesis, not after the fifth.

The generalisable form: when a vendor feature plainly must exist (the counterpart command is right there in the menu, or a colleague describes it from memory), the cost of not finding it is unbounded, while the cost of one documentation search is one call. Reach for the docs early precisely when you are confident the capability exists.

8. Operational notes for this application

CapitalLogicDesigner.exe is not in the Start menu. It lives in the Capital bin directory (here C:\Users\chris\Documents\Apps\bin). Tools that resolve applications by Start-menu name will not find it. EXERCISED.
Only Capital Logic Designer opens a topology design on this install. Systems Architect, Systems Integrator and Platform Designer all refuse it by name with "Incorrect Design Type". EXERCISED, six refusals collected.
Capital Logic Designer can hang. Windows logged Application Hang: CapitalLogicDesigner.exe version 1.0.0.0 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. Relaunching from the bin path recovered cleanly and the session was still logged in.
The title bar reads (Single User) for a non-collaborative project. That is normal and is not the reason a dialog refuses to commit.

9. Reversing it

Association is a real write to the design. Two documented ways back, both on the topology:

Reopen Associate Logical Designs and set Managed by Build List back to None, or select rows and use Remove associated designs, then OK.
Disassociate Designs... on the topology design's context menu.

If you did this against vendor-shipped demo content (Quick Start, tutorials), say so in the write-up and record the reversal path, because the next person will assume the shipped state is pristine.

10. Checklist before reporting

Read the conductor counts back from the design, not from the dialog closing
Report inline(s) with connectivity, not just the wire count
Check the Sync tab for messages the action logged
State whether the content was vendor-shipped, and name the reversal path
If a control was greyed, say which precondition you actually checked, and which you did not

Generated from skills/capital-topology-design-association/SKILL.md in the tc-automation-skills library, which is the canonical copy and also serves as the agent skill set for Teamcenter work.