kicad-happy

⚡ kicad-happy

AI-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.

🔬 What it looks like in practice

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.

🚀 Install

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

Other install methods

Ask your agent:

Clone https://github.com/aklofas/kicad-happy and install all the skills

Claude Code (manual):