KiCAD MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that enables AI assistants like Claude to interact with KiCAD for PCB design automation. Built on the MCP 2025-06-18 specification, this server provides comprehensive tool schemas and real-time project state access for intelligent PCB design workflows.

Open source (MIT) and actively maintained. New releases keep coming, and bug reports, pull requests and discussion are welcome here.

Konnect is now Konnect-EDA, at Orchis.ai

Konnect-EDA grew out of this project. It is a native KiCad 10 plugin: a single Rust binary that works through KiCad's official IPC API and kicad-cli, with no SWIG. Its 228 tools, in 21 on-demand toolsets, cover schematic capture, PCB layout and routing, ERC and DRC, design-review audits, JLCPCB parts and fab outputs, with bundled skills for Claude and Codex.

• Free for students, hobbyists and individual developers, now and after 1.0. Everyone can use it free during the beta. From 1.0, personal, hobby, student and individual developer use stays free, with a free license key. Only businesses need a commercial license. See licensing.
• Get it: install guide and downloads on GitHub, and more at konnect-eda.orchis.ai.
• Runs on your machine. It sends nothing to Orchis.ai. See what leaves your machine.
• Help build it: report bugs and request features in its issues. Code contributors can sign up here.

The earlier mixelpixx/Konnect repository is archived. Konnect-EDA replaces it.

Overview

The Model Context Protocol is an open standard from Anthropic that allows AI assistants to securely connect to external tools and data sources. This implementation provides a standardized bridge between AI assistants and KiCAD, enabling natural language control of PCB design operations.

Key Capabilities:

• 254 tools registered, every one of them indexed for keyword discovery
• 254 tools across 20 categories with JSON Schema validation
• Keyword tool discovery via search_tools / get_category_tools
• Optional toolboxes: start with a 37-tool core and open the rest by category, to save context and stay under client tool limits
• 23 dynamic resources exposing project state
• Complete schematic workflow with 65 tools (authoring, batch edits, hierarchy, layout) and dynamic symbol loading (~10,000 symbols)
• Freerouting autorouter integration (Java, Docker, or Podman)
• Custom footprint and symbol creation tools
• JLCPCB parts integration with 2.5M+ component catalog and local library search
• Datasheet enrichment via LCSC
• Full MCP 2025-06-18 protocol compliance
• Cross-platform support (Linux, Windows, macOS)
• Real-time KiCAD UI integration via IPC API (experimental)
• Comprehensive error handling and logging

Try out Arduino MCP - now you can get Claude to help in the IDE, real time!:

https://github.com/mixelpixx/arduino-ide

What's New in v2.9.0

Board inspection tools, operating modes, autorouting by layer and by net, and a large batch of fixes, most of them found on real boards. Thanks to @dp-web4, @karu2003, @rmskkn, @YORROY123, @0anes0, @vim4all, @AlexanderSaydakov, @TimChild, @zjywlive and @b0gdaniy.

New tools

• get_stackup reads the stackup from the board file and can check it against a recipe; set_stackup_layer sets one row's thickness and dielectric properties (@karu2003).
• summarize_vias and summarize_net_copper count a net's or a board's copper without listing thousands of items (@karu2003).
• audit_via_nets compares every via's net with a reference board or a git revision. KiCad can move a via onto another net when it saves, and DRC does not notice (@dp-web4).
• set_voltage_clearance_rules writes clearance and creepage rules graded by the working voltage between net classes, from a spacing table you supply (@dp-web4).
• get_component_list filters by region (@karu2003). Two new prompts guide a DC power-distribution review and a shield review (@karu2003).

Operating modes

• KICAD_MCP_OPERATING_MODE=readonly leaves only the tools that cannot change the design, for review agents. manufacturing adds the export tools. Unset, nothing changes. The idea is from @b0gdaniy.

Autorouting

• signalLayers keeps tracks off plane layers, and layerTraceCosts makes a layer expensive rather than forbidden (@dp-web4).
• routeNets and excludeNets route one set of nets and keep the rest as they are, so a board can be routed one domain at a time (@dp-web4).
• Every outline of a keepout rule area reaches Freerouting (@dp-web4).

Fixes

• sync_schematic_to_board takes nets, symbol links and fields from KiCad's own netlist. On a real 333-pad board, 304 pads had the wrong net before (@dp-web4).
• Saves are no longer refused as "changed externally" after sync_schematic_to_board (@vim4all), autoroute, import_ses or refill_zones.
• Schematic edits are refused while the schematic is open in KiCad, which would otherwise overwrite them (@0anes0).
• Library listing and search find KiCad's tables under KICAD_CONFIG_HOME and on a fresh install. One behaviour change: the symbol loader now reads only the newest KiCad version's global table, as KiCad does (@dp-web4).
• add_via keeps its net inside another net's zone and reads the parameters its schema declares; modify_trace works on the IPC backend; STM32 symbols load again; search_footprints with library finds late libraries (@dp-web4, @YORROY123, @rmskkn, @zjywlive).
• run_drc reports unconnected items and schematic parity, board tools keep working after an image render, and project libraries survive a move (@dp-web4, @AlexanderSaydakov).

Full details in the CHANGELOG.

What's New in v2.8.3

Toolboxes to keep the tool list small, a Linux setup script, and a batch of fixes. Thanks to @cornellana, @YORROY123, @reinauer and @ToThePointTechDev.

Toolboxes

• Set KICAD_MCP_TOOLBOXES=core and a client starts with 37 tools instead of about 250: the core tools, search_tools, and list_toolboxes, open_toolbox and close_toolbox. The assistant opens the toolboxes a task needs. Name toolboxes in the setting, such as schematic,drc, to have them open from the start; Claude Desktop needs that, because it doesn't re-read the tool list until it restarts. Without the setting nothing changes. See Toolboxes.
• Every tool now has a category, so search_tools finds all of them (#345).

Setup

• setup-linux.sh detects KiCad's Python, checks the dependencies in the environment it will configure, and merges the server into Claude Desktop's config with a backup, like setup-macos.sh (#445, @reinauer).

Fixes

• export_gerber writes the files it reports. On the SWIG backend it wrote none while listing every layer (#455, #456, @cornellana).
• download_jlcpcb_database gets the time a download needs, reports the real error when it fails, and no longer mixes cached yaqwsx volumes from different days (#454).
• A tool call made while the server is still starting waits instead of failing with "Python process ... is not running" (#453).
• Courtyard checks test each outline of a multi-outline courtyard separately (#406, #452, @YORROY123).
• route_differential_pair reads the parameters its schema declares, and gap is the edge-to-edge spacing; get_nets_list returns the statistics it advertises, and get_net_pads honours unit (#450, #451, @YORROY123).
• MCP SDK 1.31.0 (from 1.29.0).

Full details in the CHANGELOG.

What's New in v2.8.2

A patch release with three fixes. KiCad 10's stock libraries are found on installs where the global library table refers to them through a variable. New sheets are written the way KiCad writes them. A line break in a value no longer makes KiCad drop a sheet. Thanks to @zerthimon, who reported and fixed the first two and traced the third.

KiCad 10's stock libraries

• KiCad 10's global library tables hold one row that points t