The exporter hard-coded every via to TOP-BOTTOM, so an inner-layer via became a through via. Standalone vias lost their GND net, and vias inside a trace route disappeared.
Recurring agent failure issue in circuit-json-to-altium (tscircuit)
What engineers report
A recurring agent failure problem in circuit-json-to-altium (tscircuit) that mostly hits the electrical engineer.
Failure pattern: validation / failure
Analyst note
From the Grok pain-radar digests, Nov 8-9 2026 (Nov 8 8:41 AM ET through Nov 9 6:41 AM ET digests plus the Haitch editions). Verified live 2026-11-09: issue/PR read; title and state confirmed.
What it costs a team
Modeled annual cost
$30,000
For a team of 5
Prototype delay
3 days
Modeled schedule slip per occurrence
Time lost
240 min
Per engineer per month, about 1 incidents
How the cost is modeled
240 min/month × 5 engineers × 12 months = 240 hours × $125/hour = $30,000
A modeled estimate with medium confidence. Swap in your own team size and loaded rate to size it for your team.
Engineering tools that address it
No engineering tool profile lists this error yet. Browse tools that connect to circuit-json-to-altium (tscircuit).
Evidence
More recurring errors in circuit-json-to-altium (tscircuit)
- A 2 x 1.6 mm pad with a 0.6 mm drill offset 0.4/0.2 mm exports to a PcbDoc that is byte-identical to the zero-offset version. The drill comes out centred, and the binary writer cannot store per-layer hole offsets yet.ECAD · impact 66
- SMT pads with a 0.3 mm solder mask margin export the same PCB file whether the pad is covered or exposed, so covered and exposed pads are indistinguishable in the Altium export. Both were checked with an altiumts render, not native Altium.ECAD · impact 66
Sourced from public community reports. Costs and delays are modeled estimates, not measurements. Know a better source or a fix? Tell us at hello@productflo.io.