dsh-kicad

LIMITATIONS

Known limitations

- Boards are created and kept in sync from the schematic (`kicad_update_pcb`), placed (`auto_place`), edited, routed (`kicad_autoroute`), checked and exported (`kicad_export_fab`). Autorouting needs Java 25+ and Freerouting, which are installed separately (see [Routing](#routing)); dense boards may keep a few unrouted connections for the agent to finish by hand. - Simulation covers analog behaviour with ngspice; parts without a SPICE model are left out, and firmware, signal integrity, EMC and thermal behaviour are not simulated. Plain Device:LED / Device:D symbols need `Sim.Device` set (see [Simulation](#simulation)). - Firmware simulation covers the ATtiny25/45/85 and the classic ESP32 (on Espressif's QEMU, a separate install); it refuses what it does not model (see [Firmware against the board](#firmware-against-the-board); on the ESP32 among others deep sleep, pads driven by I2C, SPI or RMT, WiFi and Bluetooth). MCU checks are otherwise static and only cover families with a provider (classic ESP32, the 8-pin ATtiny25/45/85, the ATmega48/88/168/328 and the Arduino Nano/UNO today; the ATmega328P's firmware simulation is in progress); other MCUs are tracked in #31. An ESP32 pin table is only as good as its transcription: verify it against the datasheet of the exact module. - Fab presets were read from JLCPCB's and PCBWay's capability pages on 2026-10-21 and may drift. The JLC CPL keeps KiCad's rotations; JLCPCB's preview may need per-part rotation fixes. - Edits cover symbols, properties, wires, labels, power symbols, junctions and no-connects; hierarchical sheet creation, buses and graphic items are not edited. - New sub-sheet symbols get their instance path from the root sheet one level up; deeper hierarchies may need KiCad's annotation. - Images reach the model only when the model route declares image input and an attachment store is mounted; otherwise the render tool returns SVG paths. - Approval needs an interactive approval channel; headless runs without one deny design edits unless `approval: allow`. - The 3D view needs WebGL (otherwise it shows KiCad renders). Its colours follow KiCad's GLB export, which writes sRGB colours as glTF's linear colour factors; the view reads them as sRGB to match KiCad, so other glTF viewers show the same file lighter. - The interactive viewer is KiCanvas, vendored at a pinned commit by `scripts/vendor-kicanvas.mjs` (see `packages/client-ui-kicad/vendor/kicanvas/README.md` for the offline/icon/theme patches). It parses KiCad 10 files but ignores tokens it does not know yet; the SVG mode is the kicad-cli ground truth. It needs WebGL2. - The IPC channel is a status probe plus the KiCad-side launcher; live editing through IPC is not implemented (KiCad's IPC API is PCB-centric). - The Flatpak path runs kicad-cli as `flatpak run --filesystem=host --filesystem=/tmp --command=kicad-cli org.kicad.KiCad`; this was tested with a stand-in `flatpak`, not a real Flatpak KiCad. The install commands for apt/pacman/zypper/brew/winget are documented but were only exercised on Fedora. - Checks started from the settings page append `/kicad-doctor` entries to the log of the session they borrow (dsh logs every command).