⚡ kicad-happy

Claude Code skills for electronics design with KiCad. Analyze schematics, review PCB layouts, download datasheets, source components, and prepare boards for fabrication — all from your terminal.

🛠️ Requires Claude Code — Anthropic's agentic coding tool that lives in your terminal. Skills like these let you extend it into entirely new domains beyond software.

These skills turn Claude Code 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's included

| Skill | What it does | | ------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | kicad | ⚡ Parse and analyze KiCad schematics, PCB layouts, Gerbers, and PDF reference designs. Automated subcircuit detection, design review, DRC/ERC verification. | | bom | 📋 Full BOM lifecycle — analyze, source, price, export tracking CSVs, generate per-supplier order files. | | digikey | 🔎 Search DigiKey for components and download datasheets via API. | | mouser | 🔎 Search Mouser for components and download datasheets. | | lcsc | 🔎 Search LCSC for components (production sourcing, JLCPCB parts library). | | element14 | 🔎 Search Newark/Farnell/element14 for components (international sourcing, one API for three storefronts). | | jlcpcb | 🏭 JLCPCB fabrication and assembly — design rules, BOM/CPL format, ordering workflow. | | pcbway | 🏭 PCBWay fabrication and assembly — turnkey assembly with MPN-based sourcing. |

🚀 Install

The easiest way — just ask Claude Code:

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

And keep up to date with the latest as we use our test harness to validate against a corpus of open source projects.

Claude, pull the latest changes for kicad-happy and update my skills

Or do it manually:

git clone https://github.com/aklofas/kicad-happy.git
cd kicad-happy

# Install all skills (symlinks into ~/.claude/skills/)
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
for skill in kicad bom digikey mouser lcsc element14 jlcpcb pcbway; do
  ln -sf "$(pwd)/skills/$skill" ~/.claude/skills/$skill
done

You can also install individually — symlink any skill folder from skills/ into ~/.claude/skills/. For project-specific installs, use .claude/skills/ in your project root instead.

The kicad skill is the core — the others enhance it with sourcing, datasheets, and manufacturing workflows.

Optional dependencies

The analysis scripts are pure Python 3 with no required dependencies. Optional extras:

• requests — better datasheet downloads (handles HTTP/2, manufacturer anti-bot)
• playwright — last-resort fallback for JS-heavy datasheet sites (Broadcom, Espressif)
• pdftotext (poppler-utils) — better PDF text extraction for datasheet verification

API keys (optional)

The distributor skills work best with API credentials, but none are strictly required — Claude falls back to web search for component lookups and datasheet downloads.

"Claude, help me set up API keys for the distributor skills"

| Distributor | Env variables | How to get | | ------------- | -------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | DigiKey | DIGIKEY_CLIENT_ID, DIGIKEY_CLIENT_SECRET | DigiKey API Portal — register an app, get OAuth 2.0 credentials | | Mouser | MOUSER_SEARCH_API_KEY | My Mouser → APIs → register for Search API key | | element14 | ELEMENT14_API_KEY | element14 API Portal — one key covers Newark, Farnell, and element14 | | LCSC | none needed | Uses the free jlcsearch community API |

🔬 What it looks like in practice

"Analyze my KiCad project at hardware/rev2/"

Claude runs the analysis scripts, reads datasheets, and produces a full design review. Here's a condensed example from a real project — a 6-layer BLDC motor controller (187 components):

Power tree — every regulator traced from input to output, feedback dividers identified, output voltage computed:

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

Detected subcircuits — found automatically from the schematic:

| 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 |

PCB cross-reference — the review covers layout too:

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)

Issues found:

| 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.

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.

The analysis covers every domain in the design:

| Category | Examples | | ----------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Power | Regulator Vout computed from feedback dividers, power sequencing, enable chains, inrush analysis | | Analog | Op-amp gain computation, voltage dividers with ratios, RC/LC filter cutoff frequencies | | Protection | TVS/ESD mapping per interface, MOSFET switch gate drive analysis, flyback diode checks | | Digital | I2C pull-up verification, SPI/UART/CAN bus detection, differential pairs, level crossing analysis | | Motor/Power | H-bridge and 3-phase bridge detection, current sense shunts, gate driver mapping | | RF | Signal chains, switch matrices, mixer/LNA/PA identification, balun detection | | PCB | Thermal via adequacy, zone stitching density, trace width vs current, DFM checks, tombstoning risk | | Manufacturing | BOM consolidation opportunities, MPN coverage audit, assembly complexity scoring |

📚 How the analysis works

The analysis scripts parse KiCad's S-expression file format directly into structured JSON — component lists, net connectivity, detected subcircuits, board dimensions, DFM measurements. Claude then reads that JSON alongside your datasheets to cross-reference values, trace signal paths, and write a design review with every conclusion shown and verifiable. For the full end-to-end walkthrough from S-expression parsing through signal detection, datasheet cross-referencing, design review, and discussion of limitations — see How It Works. Det