skidl-skills

SKiDL Skills Plugin for Claude Code

SKiDL Skills is a Claude Code plugin for AI-assisted KiCad PCB design using the SKiDL Python library.

Why SKiDL Skills

Designing circuit boards is hard, especially for a hobbyist like me with no electrical engineering background.

With the advent of AI, I was hoping these new tools would be able to help me build the PCBs of my dreams, but I was wrong...

LLMs (understandibly) suck at spatial reasoning, but luckily they are great at writing code!

SKiDL allows you to define electronic circuits using Python code, and my Claude Code plugin adds AI agents and skills on top of it to help you code your way to a full-fledged KiCad netlist.

This should get you 80% of the way to having a working PCB in your hands!

What remains is parts placement and routing, which is actively being solved by Seve Ibarluzea as we speak.

What's included

This Claude Code plugin includes 9 agents:

1. Orchestrator - The project manager, who's making sure the job get's done, and done right!
2. Requirements Interviewer - Helps you define a SPEC.md with a concise description of your circuit
3. Circuit Architect - Turns SPEC.md into professional architecture documents and a skeleton BOM
4. Part Sourcer - Sources in-stock parts from suppliers and retrieves KiCad footprints
5. Datasheet Librarian - Gathers specs and datasheets for significant parts and stores them locally
6. SKiDL Coder - Writes the SKiDL circuit code for simple circuits
7. SKiDL Block Coder - Writes SKiDL code for a single sub-circuit of a more complex circuit
8. SKiDL Assembler - Wires together completed sub-circuit files into a runnable circuit package
9. ERC Reviewer - Runs ERC, classifies messages, suggests precise fixes, and produces a clear PASS/FAIL report

On top of that, you get:

• 5 scripts
• 4 skills
• 4 hooks
• 2 rules

Installation

To install the SKiDL Skills Claude Code plugin, run the following commands in a terminal:

claude plugin marketplace add nickkraakman/skidl-skills
claude plugin install skidl-skills@waveguide-marketplace

I also highly recommend you install the pcbparts MCP for improved part searching:

claude mcp add --transport http pcbparts https://pcbparts.dev/mcp

If you don't have KiCad and SKiDL setup yet, please follow these instructions if you're on Mac:

• Install Homebrew: https://brew.sh/
• Install Python: brew install python
• Install KiCad: brew install kicad
• Install npm: brew install npm
• Install netlistsvg: npm install -g netlistsvg
• Set the KICAD_SYMBOL_DIR environment variable: export KICAD_SYMBOL_DIR=/Applications/KiCad/KiCad.app/Contents/SharedSupport/symbols # Or whatever your path to KiCad is
• Create a virtual environment: python -m venv .venv
• Activate the virtual environment: source .venv/bin/activate
• Install SKiDL inside the virtual environment: pip install skidl

For Windows, you might have to ask Claude to help you translate the above instructions to equivalents for your operating system.

Usage example

We'll open claude code, and run the /new-circuit command. The Orchestrator agent will take over from there and guide you through the process.

claude
/new-circuit

[!IMPORTANT] Claude is slow, and it will ask you for permission many times. Expect the process to take about 30 - 60 minutes from idea to netlist.

Here is an example of the files this plugin will create for you:

And this is an example of a PCB netlist I created with this plugin (I placed the parts manually):

Updating

/plugin update skidl-skills

Contributing

Contributing is easy and much appreciated:

1. Fork the repository
2. Make your changes
3. Create a branch
4. Submit a PR

Be sure to use the Anthropic Best Practices as a guide.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details

Community

• Discussions: https://github.com/nickkraakman/skidl-skills/discussions
• Issues: https://github.com/nickkraakman/skidl-skills/issues