Form
Open source AI hardware design workspace: describe a design and iterate toward CAD models, wiring diagrams, bills of materials and assembly instructions, usable through a web app, CLI or MCP.
What it does and how it connects
Form (Forma) is an open-source AI hardware design workspace from Caid Technologies. A user describes a design, adds reference images, and iterates toward CAD models, wiring diagrams, bills of materials, and assembly instructions, through a web app, CLI, or MCP connection.
The workspace produces CAD that can be exported as STEP, STL, 3MF, and OBJ from supported native CAD builds, generates bills of materials, interactive wiring diagrams, and assembly instructions, and runs rule-based checks that flag shorts, voltage mismatches, and pin conflicts. It works through a structured Hardware Intermediate Representation, with the host agent supplying the model and Forma performing deterministic compilation.
Form is an alpha research prototype for makers and developers: electrical validation focuses on 3.3 to 5 V educational projects, and CAD and motion previews need engineering review before fabrication. It is licensed under MPL-2.0. CAD generation requires a native OpenCAD setup, and the docs describe AI-assisted CAD migrations for Onshape, NX, and Fusion.
The repo is also reachable as caid-technologies/Form and caid-technologies/Forma-OSS; all three paths resolve to the same repository.
Alternatives
Compare side by side- MecAgent
MecAgent is an AI agent for mechanical CAD that works live inside SolidWorks, rather than a full hardware design workspace.
- AutoCAD MCP Pro
AutoCAD MCP Pro is an MCP server that lets AI agents draw, edit, and read DWG and DXF drawings in AutoCAD, rather than a full hardware workspace.
- eda-agent
eda-agent is an MCP server that lets AI agents read and modify a live Altium Designer session through a DelphiScript bridge, with KiCad as an additional backend.
- tscircuit
tscircuit designs boards in TypeScript and React (TSX) in a browser or CLI workflow, rather than a conversational hardware workspace.
Sources
Not verified
- Pricing: none stated on the repo as read.
- Related Error Index entries: entries about OpenCAD repositories exist, but none concerns Form itself, so none is linked.
- Real user voices: no independent user voice found; issue 579 is the project team's own production postmortem, and the only recent issue by a non-team author (580) is a Parallel employee's proposal to add his company's search provider, not a user report.
- Website https://caid-technologies.us: live resolution could not be verified from this environment (the server closes the connection without a response); the URL is the project's stated site per the README.
Last verified November 6, 2026. Listings are informational. The evidence score measures public, verifiable evidence and is not an endorsement or a compatibility claim.