Build Order-Ready PCBs with the PCB Skill for Claude Code and Codex

What PCB Skill Does

PCB Skill is an agent skill that guides a hardware idea from its initial concept to a PCB that can be ordered, soldered, and brought up. It runs in Claude Code desktop or Codex desktop, controls EasyEDA Pro through an MCP bridge, and uses a browser in which you are already logged in to PCB manufacturers and component suppliers.

The project is not a general PCB theory course. Instead, it provides a gated engineering process designed to catch practical defects: rotated sockets, components hidden beneath module bodies, ineffective keep-outs, incorrect geometric transforms, stale verification inputs, and monitoring scripts that fail silently.

The agent can prepare carts and navigate to a pre-payment page, but it never places an order or makes a payment. Final purchasing actions remain manual.

Design Principles

The workflow is organized around three priorities.

• Cost-effectiveness: Each component should be priced from a live supplier page or explicitly marked as an estimate. The bill of materials is also adjusted for parts you already own.
• Hand assembly: The board is designed for you to assemble. The process avoids bottom-terminated packages, keeps pads reachable, and considers an assembly order that will not trap solder joints.
• Free prototyping: The board is kept within the selected free-prototype constraints from the initial sketch rather than being resized or simplified at the end.

Prerequisites

Before using the skill, prepare the desktop applications and accounts it needs:

• Claude Code desktop or Codex desktop.
• EasyEDA Pro with the required MCP bridge.
• A compatible browser with the agent extension installed.
• Active browser sessions for your PCB manufacturer and parts suppliers.
• Optionally, an approval watcher if your operating system displays a permission prompt for every browser action.

Follow the repository's setup guide for the complete environment checklist. Platform-specific approval-watcher instructions are provided for macOS and Windows.

The approval watcher is intentionally limited. It may reduce repetitive permission prompts, but it does not interact with carts or payment controls.

Install PCB Skill

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/daishuge/pcb-skill.git

2. Install it for your agent

For Claude Code, copy the skill into the Claude skills directory:

cp -r pcb-skill/skills/pcb ~/.claude/skills/pcb

For Codex, use the Codex skills directory instead:

cp -r pcb-skill/skills/pcb ~/.codex/skills/pcb

3. Configure EasyEDA Pro and MCP

Complete the EasyEDA MCP setup. PCB Skill depends on this bridge to drive EasyEDA Pro, so verify the connection before beginning a board.

4. Prepare browser sessions

Open the browser with the required agent extension and log in to the PCB fabrication service and component suppliers you plan to use. The agent shops through these existing sessions rather than handling credentials itself. Consult the browser login instructions for details.

Start a PCB Project

Once the skill and integrations are ready, give the agent a concrete hardware idea. Include known electrical, mechanical, manufacturing, budget, and inventory constraints. An illustrative request could look like this:

Design a hand-solderable controller board for my display module.
Use parts already in my inventory where possible.
Keep the design inside my PCB manufacturer's free-prototype limits.
Ask me about any requirement whose answer would change the board.
Prepare sourcing and fabrication orders, but stop before payment.

This is not a special command syntax. It is a practical way to state the project goal and the boundaries that PCB Skill is designed to enforce.

Follow the Four-Phase Workflow

Phase 1: Define the concept

The first phase separates hard constraints from soft preferences. Hard constraints might include connector compatibility, enclosure dimensions, required supply voltage, or fabrication limits. Soft preferences might include part brands, connector locations, or optional features.

The phase is complete only after the agent has asked every question for which different answers would produce a different board. Do not rush this gate: uncertainty left here becomes expensive rework later.

Phase 2: Create the schematic and source parts

The agent develops the schematic, builds a priced bill of materials, and stages supplier carts. Netlist assertions must pass before the phase is accepted.

Review the sourcing output carefully. Every price should be identified as either VERIFIED from a live page or ESTIMATE. The cost calculation should also account for components already in your inventory rather than treating every BOM line as a new purchase.

At this point, check package choices as well as electrical values. The project's assembly principle favors packages with accessible pads and rejects packages that are impractical for the intended hand-soldering process.

Phase 3: Place, route, and review the board

The layout phase produces a placed, routed, and poured PCB. Placement must be routable, not merely accepted as legal by the EDA tool. The repository includes placement utilities for deriving courtyards from real pads, identifying via lanes, and checking clearance around module bodies.

The phase requires a clean design-rule check and a successful adversarial review. That review is read-only and re-derives important measurements instead of trusting existing values or status indicators.

Phase 4: Verify fabrication files and stage purchasing

The agent generates the Gerber package and verifies it independently of the EDA software that created it. The repository's verification scripts cover areas such as Gerber parsing, clearance sweeps, drill counts, netlist assertions, and 3D interference.

After verification, the agent can stage fabrication and parts purchases and navigate to the pre-payment page. You remain responsible for inspecting the final prices, quantities, shipping details, fabrication options, and payment controls before manually submitting any order.

Understand the Repository Tools

• skills/pcb/SKILL.md: Defines the agent skill and its core behavior.
• skills/pcb/references/: Contains on-demand guidance for workflow, reviews, manufacturing, sourcing, EDA-MCP pitfalls, mechanical and 3D checks, and bring-up.
• scripts/placement/: Provides placement checks involving pad-derived courtyards, routing space, and module-body clearance.
• scripts/routing/: Contains the Specctra DSN and SES autorouting chain, a four-state watchdog, and rate-floor monitoring.
• scripts/verify/: Performs verification independently from EasyEDA, including Gerber, clearance, drill, netlist, and interference checks.
• scripts/notify/: Relays progress so lengthy operations do not remain silent.
• docs/case-study.md: Documents defects found on a reference board and reports its actual cost.

Advanced Reliability Tips

Define review termination before reviewing

A green board view or clean-looking layout is not proof that the design is correct. Each phase should end with a one-pass adversarial review. Write down the review's termination criterion before it begins; otherwise, review can turn into an undefined loop.

Measure decision-critical claims

A statement such as this probably is not supported should not decide whether work proceeds. Require evidence for claims that block or approve a phase. Record which values were directly measured and which were computed from those measurements.

Calibrate verification tools

Do not assume a checker is correct simply because it completes successfully. Calibrate geometric transformations against a known asymmetric object. Symmetric test objects can conceal rotations, reflections, and coordinate-system mistakes.

Make long-running jobs observable

For every wait condition or log filter, ask whether a crash at that moment would produce a visible line. PCB Skill includes watchdog and notification components because a process that is running silently is difficult to distinguish from one that has stalled or failed.

Inspect the final package, not only the source design

Run independent checks on the actual Gerbers and drill data intended for upload. This protects against export problems, stale files, and verification tools accidentally reading a previous release rather than the current board.

Use the case study as a review checklist

The project case study explains the real defects that motivated the workflow. Review it before accepting your first design so that abstract gates can be connected to concrete failure modes.

Conclusion

PCB Skill turns PCB development into a sequence of explicit, testable gates spanning requirements, schematic capture, sourcing, layout, routing, fabrication verification, and purchasing preparation. Its main value is not automatic drawing alone, but disciplined checking across tools and phases. Install it in Claude Code or Codex, complete the EasyEDA MCP and browser setup, and retain manual control over every final purchase.