AI-powered KiCad electronics design skills — schematic analysis, PCB review, component sourcing, BOM management, and manufacturing prep.
npx claudepluginhub aklofas/kicad-happyKiCad electronics design skills. Analyze schematics, review PCB layouts, download datasheets, source components, and prep boards for fabrication.
aklofasAI-powered design review for KiCad. Analyzes schematics, PCB layouts, and Gerbers. Catches real bugs before you order boards.
Works with Claude Code and OpenAI Codex, as a GitHub Action for automated PR reviews, or as standalone Python scripts you can run anywhere.
These skills turn your AI coding agent into a full-fledged electronics design assistant that understands your KiCad projects at a deep level: parses schematics and PCB layouts into structured data, cross-references component values against datasheets, detects common design errors, and walks you through the full prototype-to-production workflow.
Point your agent at a KiCad project and it does the rest — parses every schematic and PCB file, traces every net, computes every voltage, and tells you what's wrong before you spend money on boards.
"Analyze my KiCad project at
hardware/rev2/"
Here's a condensed example from a real 6-layer BLDC motor controller (187 components). The agent found all of this automatically:
It builds your power tree — tracing every regulator from input to load, computing output voltages from feedback dividers, and flagging when the math doesn't match:
V+ (10-54V motor bus, TVS protected)
├── MAX17760 buck → +12V (feedback: 226k/16.2k, Vref=1.0V → Vout=14.95V) ⚠️
│ └── TPS629203 → +5V → TPS629203 → +3.3V
├── DRV8353 gate driver (PVDD = V+ direct)
└── 3-Phase Bridge: 6x FDMT80080DC (80V/80A)
└── 36x 4.7uF 100V bulk caps = 169.2uF
It identifies every subcircuit — not just passives, but the functional blocks and how they connect:
| Subcircuit | Details |
|---|---|
| Motor drive | 6 FETs, gate driver, per-phase current sense (0.5mΩ), 3x matched RC filters (22Ω + 1nF = 7.23 MHz) |
| Buses | 2x SPI, CAN with 120Ω termination, RS-422 differential |
| Protection | TVS on V+ input (51V standoff matches bus spec), ground domain separation with net ties |
| Sensing | Battery voltage divider (100k/4.7k → 54V max reads as 2.43V), FET temp NTC |
It cross-references the PCB — checking that the layout actually supports what the schematic promises:
Board: 56.0 x 56.0 mm, 6-layer, 1.55mm stackup
Routing: 100% complete, 0 unrouted nets
Thermal pad vias:
Phase FETs: 21-85 vias per pad — good
STM32 QFN-48: 14 vias — WARNING (recommended: 16)
Inductor L2: 4 vias — INSUFFICIENT (recommended: 9)
It tells you what needs attention — and what doesn't:
| Severity | Issue |
|---|---|
| WARNING | Feedback divider computes to 14.95V, not 12V — Vref heuristic may be wrong, verify datasheet |
| WARNING | STM32 thermal pad has 14 vias (need 16) — elevated die temp under load |
| WARNING | Inductor L2 has 4 thermal vias (need 9) — carries the full +12V rail current |
| SUGGESTION | No test point on V+ motor bus — add for bring-up measurements |
What looks good: 170µF bus capacitance across 38 caps, proper GND/GNDPWR domain separation, CAN bus termination verified, 100% MPN coverage across all components, zero DFM violations, JLCPCB standard tier compatible.
It maps your protection coverage — finds every TVS, ESD suppressor, and fuse, then tells you which interfaces are unprotected:
Protection devices:
D1 (PESD5V0S2UT): USB_DP, USB_DM → GND [dual-channel ESD] ✓
D3 (SMBJ51A): V+ motor bus → GND [TVS, 51V standoff] ✓
F1 (1A): V+ input [fuse] ✓
⚠️ CAN_H / CAN_L — no TVS protection (exposed on connector J3)
⚠️ I2C_SDA / I2C_SCL — no ESD protection (exposed on header J5)
It estimates your sleep current — traces every always-on path and totals the quiescent draw per rail:
+3.3V sleep current breakdown:
U3 (TPS629203) quiescent: ~15 µA
R5/R6 feedback divider (226k/16.2k): 13.6 µA
R12 pull-up (100k to +3.3V): 33 µA
Total estimated: ~62 µA
For a complete example, see the full design review of an ESP32-S3 board — 52 components, 2-layer, dual boost converters, USB host, touch sensing. For the end-to-end walkthrough from S-expression parsing through signal detection and datasheet cross-referencing, see How It Works.
We're excited to release kicad-happy as a Claude Code plugin — you can now install it with two commands from the /plugin menu. For OpenAI Codex, the manual install and agent prompt methods still work as before.
Claude Code plugin (recommended):
/plugin marketplace add aklofas/kicad-happy
/plugin install kicad-happy@kicad-happy
Ask your agent:
Clone https://github.com/aklofas/kicad-happy and install all the skills
Claude Code (manual):