Kicad layout

Skill AvatarSD/KiSkill/skills/kicad-layout

Autoroute a KiCad board headlessly: schematic → staged footprints → placement → freerouting → routed .kicad_pcb, DRC-gated. Use when asked to route a board, do layout from a schematic, or autoroute nets.From its SKILL.md

Install

npx -y skills add AvatarSD/KiSkill --skill kicad-layout

Assembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.

3 things to look at

1 stars1 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.
runs commandsInstructs the agent to run 1 command, including `kicad-cli pcb drc --severity-all`.
fetches URLsInstructs the agent to fetch 1 URL, including github freerouting/freerouting releases.

SKILL.md

1.9 KB, 461 tokens by cl100k_base, as published. Nobody here has run it

Headless layout / autorouting

Engine: $(kx root)/kicad_lib/layout.py (python API: PYTHONPATH=<repo>; any freerouting-*-linux-x64 in .tools is auto-detected, newest wins). Worked end-to-end example: tests/test_layout.py (scratch board with outline + 2 netted footprints → 9 routed segments).

The chain

layout.autoroute(pcb_in, pcb_out, passes=20)
  = dsn_export (pcbnew python in the KiCad flatpak:
                pcbnew.ExportSpecctraDSN — headless, verified 10.0)
  → route      (.tools/freerouting-2.2.4-linux-x64/bin/freerouting,
                BUNDLED JRE — no system java; classic CLI
                -de in.dsn -do out.ses -mp N -da)
  → ses_import (pcbnew.ImportSpecctraSES + SaveBoard)

Returns segment/via counts. Bootstrap if .tools missing: download freerouting-X-linux-x64.zip from github freerouting/freerouting releases, unzip into .tools/ (no root needed).

Preconditions (or DSN export is meaningless)

Edge.Cuts outline present (closed).
Pads carry nets. Update-PCB-from-Schematic normally fills them; when building boards programmatically, append (net "NAME") to each pad — pcb format 20260206 (KiCad 10) keys nets BY NAME, no numeric id (old (net 1 "N1") style is normalized on import, harmless).
Placement matters more than the router: group by schematic function, decoupling caps adjacent, connectors at edges (rule canon).

After routing — never skip

kicad-cli pcb drc --severity-all set-diff vs pre-route baseline.
Render F.Cu/B.Cu/Edge.Cuts → PNG → look (kicad-review pixel diff).
pcbnew rewrites the file wholesale on SES import — commit the pre-route board first, diff after.

What ships with it

Read from the repository

Just SKILL.md. No reference files, no scripts.