Konnect-EDA

AI-assisted PCB design for KiCad 10

Website · Download · Licensing · Report an issue · Orchis.ai

Your AI designs the board. KiCad stays in charge. Konnect-EDA is a native KiCad plugin — a single Rust binary — that lets Claude, Codex and other AI assistants design schematics and PCBs through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). The result is an ordinary KiCad project you can open and edit.

228 tools across 21 on-demand toolsets. Schematic capture, PCB layout and routing, ERC/DRC, design-review audits, JLCPCB part search, reference circuits, and a full manufacturing export pipeline — with bundled skills and agents that teach Claude KiCad conventions out of the box.

Status: beta. The core toolchain is tested and working, but this is a young release and it wants real-world mileage. Bug reports and feature requests are welcome in Issues. Konnect-EDA is closed source; to help build it, sign up as a contributor.

Free for students, hobbyists and individual developers, now and after 1.0. Everyone can use Konnect-EDA 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.

Runs on your machine. Konnect-EDA sends nothing to Orchis.ai: no telemetry, no analytics, no update checks. See what leaves your machine.

Coming from KiCAD MCP Server? Konnect-EDA grew out of KiCAD MCP Server, which stays open source and maintained. Konnect-EDA works through KiCad's official IPC API and kicad-cli instead of SWIG, which KiCad 11 removes.

What it does

Instead of describing changes and applying them by hand, the AI works your project directly:

• Place and wire schematic components — add resistors, ICs, connectors; wire them together by pin name
• Lay out the PCB — place, move, rotate, and route footprints in real time via KiCad's IPC API, with full undo/redo integration
• Run design checks — ERC, DRC, connectivity validation, decoupling audits, power-rail review, BOM health checks
• Export production files — Gerbers, drill, BOM, pick-and-place, 3D models, PDF
• Search JLCPCB parts — search a local snapshot of the JLCPCB parts catalog and suggest alternatives
• Start from reference circuits — USB-C, LDO, buck converter, STM32, I2C and LED templates
• Watch it happen — a live schematic viewer auto-refreshes as the AI edits

The full tool catalog is in tool-directory.md.

How it works

Installation

From the KiCad Plugin Manager (recommended)

1. Download the package for your OS from Releases: konnect-pcm-v<version>-windows.zip, -macos.zip, or -linux.zip. Each bundles that platform's server binary — the macOS package is a universal build, so one download covers Apple Silicon and Intel. (The konnect-pcm-* assets are the KiCad plugin packages; the other archives are standalone server binaries.)
2. Open KiCad 10 → Plugin and Content Manager
3. Click Install from File and select the zip
4. Restart KiCad

Verify: open the PCB Editor → Tools → External Plugins → you should see Konnect.

For KiCad 10, the Konnect settings dialog also offers an optional native Specctra bridge. When enabled, export_specctra_dsn can ask the active PCB Editor to generate its native DSN while Konnect still binds the export to the exact IPC snapshot and creates the strict reverse manifest used during SES import. The bridge is local-only, authenticated, disabled by default, and not the KiCad 11 integration path. Konnect uses its Rust exporter by default; native_bridge_mode: "prefer" enables fallback to Rust when the bridge is unavailable, while "require" refuses instead.

For end-to-end autorouting, run check_freerouting, then export_specctra_dsn → route_specctra_dsn → plan_specctra_ses_import / apply_specctra_ses. Readiness reports engine discovery, native-MCP compatibility, and complete bridge availability separately. The owned Java child is loopback-only and is reaped on success, failure, timeout, or cancellation. The first supported profile preserves fixed straight tracks and through vias; unlocked routing, arcs, zones, and unsupported geometry are rejected before mutation.

Install guidance for your AI client

Konnect bundles shared KiCad skills for Claude and Codex. Select the client when installing, checking, or removing that guidance:

# Existing behavior remains the default: Claude skills, agents, and hooks
konnect init

# Codex installs only the shared skills under ~/.agents/skills
konnect init --client codex
konnect status --client codex
konnect uninstall --client codex

MCP server startup never installs or restores guidance. Run konnect init explicitly when you want those files installed; after konnect uninstall, starting the server leaves them removed.

Guidance written by an older konnect init is not updated by upgrading the binary. konnect status compares every installed skill, agent, and hook with the bundle in the binary you run and marks each current, different, or missing. The server makes the same check once for each installed version: the first start after konnect init compares the files, records the result in ~/.konnect, and adds a one-line notice to its initialize instructions if guidance is out of sync. Later starts reuse that record, so guidance you chose to keep is not reported again. get_installation_info shows the result. Re-run konnect init to update it. It overwrites differing files, so keep a copy of any file you edited. --client remains accepted in server commands for compatibility. For example, register a standalone binary with the Codex CLI using:

codex mcp add konnect -- /path/to/konnect --client codex

Claude remains the default when --client is omitted. The installer tracks the two clients independently, and a Codex install does not create or modify ~/.claude.

--help on any subcommand prints that subcommand's usage and writes nothing — konnect init --help describes the installer rather than running it. An argument Konnect does not recognise is an error rather than being ignored, so a typo such as --cleint codex stops instead of quietly installing for the default client.

To verify which Konnect process an MCP client is actually using, call the always-visible get_installation_info tool. It reports the serving build, executable path, verified installation source when one can be proven, KiCad CLI and IPC detection, and restart guidance. A missing build commit or an unknown installation source means the available evidence was insufficient; it is not silently guessed from a directory name.

macOS

The Releases page ships standalone server binaries for both Apple Silicon (aarch64-apple-darwin) and Intel (x86_64-apple-darwin). They are not yet code-signed, so if you download one through a browser, clear the quarantine flag before first launch:

tar xzf konnect-v*-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ./konnect   # only needed for browser downloads
./konnect --help

KiCad on macOS keeps its tools inside the app bundle and they are not on PATH, so point Konnect at them in ~/Library/Application Support/konnect/config.toml:

kicad_cli = "/Applications/KiCad/KiCad.app/Contents/MacOS/kicad-cli"
kicad_binary = "/Applications/KiCad/KiCad.app/Contents/MacOS/kicad"
# KiCad 10's IPC socket on macOS (enable it in KiCad:
# Preferences → Plugins → "Enable KiCad API")
ipc_address = "ipc:///tmp/kicad/api.sock"

Claude Desktop's config lives at ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "konnect": {
      "command": "/path/to/konnect"
    }
  }
}

For Claude Code, put the same snippet in a .mcp.json in your project root.

The macOS PCM package (konnect-pcm-v<version>-macos.zip) bundles a universal server binary, so one download covers Apple Silicon and Intel. The schematic viewer compiles and launches on macOS (Tauri 2 uses the system WKWebView — WebView2 is only a Windows requirement) but hasn't had the same mileage as the Windows build yet.

Setup with Claude Desktop

After a PCM install, the server binary lives in your KiCad documents folder:

C:\Users\<YOU>\Documents\KiCad\10.0\3rdparty\plugins\com_github_mixelpixx_konnect\bin\konnect.exe

Edit %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "konnect": {
      "command": "C:\\Users\\<YOU>\\Documents\\KiCad\