About pcbkit

Getting from “I want to build this” to a correct schematic is still slow and error-prone. You pick parts from datasheets, chase down reference designs of varying quality, re-derive the same decoupling and pull-up decisions every project, and find out about the mistakes at bring-up. The recent wave of AI code-generation tools hasn't helped much here, because most of them treat a schematic like text: they emit a file and hope. An unvalidated .kicad_sch that doesn't open, or opens and fails ERC, is worse than no file at all.

pcbkit takes a different route. It starts with structured elicitation — targeted questions about power budgets, interfaces, and part constraints, because the description you'd naturally type is never complete enough to design from. It composes the design from a library of verified, parameterized circuit blocks rather than free-generating connections. It then validates the result in layers: KiCad's own ERC run against the actual file, additional rule-based electrical checks, and a semantic review of the design as a whole. Nothing reaches you until it passes.

The philosophy underneath all of this: the tool must show its work. Every assumption pcbkit makes is logged and delivered with the schematic. Every aspect it did not check is disclosed, not glossed over. Nothing is exported that hasn't passed ERC. An engineering tool that hides its reasoning is asking you to trust it; one that shows its reasoning lets you verify it — and verification, not trust, is how engineering works.

Get in touch

Questions, skepticism, and pointers to prior art are all welcome — contact us.