On a real KiCad 10.0.8 board, ERC and DRC passed and placement scored 100 out of 100, yet the overall quality gate still returned FAIL. It labelled a cosmetic advisory as an error, said 'Blocking issues remain', and pointed the agent at the warning as the first thing to fix. When a gate's verdict and its findings disagree, the agent chases the wrong fix.
Recurring agent failure issue in kicad-mcp-pro (oaslananka)
What engineers report
A recurring agent failure problem in kicad-mcp-pro (oaslananka) that mostly hits the electrical engineer.
Failure pattern: agent / false failure
Analyst note
From the Grok pain-radar digests, Nov 11-12 2026 (Nov 11 8:41 AM ET through Nov 12 5:41 AM ET digests plus the Haitch editions). Verified live 2026-11-12: 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 kicad-mcp-pro (oaslananka).
Evidence
More recurring errors in kicad-mcp-pro (oaslananka)
- A KiCad MCP routing tool hit an obstacle-bypass failure, warned, replied "Routed 2 wire segment(s)" and saved the route anyway, shorting CC1 and USB D- to ground on a USB-C plus STM32 schematic. The MCP's own connectivity graph missed it; only a re-export of KiCad's native netlist caught it.ECAD · impact 74
- A KiCad MCP tool placed a THVD1450D transceiver, returned success, and its own component contract check passed 8 of 8 pin-pad numbers plus footprint and 3D. Native KiCad 10.0.7 ERC then reported the placed symbol doesn't match the copy in the library.ECAD · impact 74
- PR #1594 fixes "False-PASS #6: empty schematic sheet (0 symbols, 0 wires) or empty PCB (0 footprints) evaluates to NOT_ASSESSED, never to PASS." It also splits schematic symbol rotation, footprint rotation and pick-and-place rotation, which had been mixed. PR #1593 makes sure "nearby wrong-rail capacitors cannot receive electrical PASS" by checking actual pin and net connectivity instead of distance, and labels distance-only checks as advisory. Six numbered false passes in one MCP server. Agents that read PASS from this tool would have shipped boards the check never actually looked at.ECAD · impact 74
- PR #1594 fixes "False-PASS #6: empty schematic sheet (0 symbols, 0 wires) or empty PCB (0 footprints) evaluates to NOT_ASSESSED, never to PASS." It also splits schematic symbol rotation, footprint rotation and pick-and-place rotation, which had been mixed. PR #1593 makes sure "nearby wrong-rail capacitors cannot receive electrical PASS" by checking actual pin and net connectivity instead of distance, and labels distance-only checks as advisory. Six numbered false passes in one MCP server. Agents that read PASS from this tool would have shipped boards the check never actually looked at.ECAD · impact 74
- Someone evaluating KiCad MCP servers read the project gate code. It ties done to kicad-cli DRC, but a board with unfilled or stale zones can pass while copper is missing, and unconnected items do not fail the gate. route_single 'returns a fixed success message without reading the result back.'ECAD · impact 74
- The KiCad IPC companion treated a JSON-RPC error, a response with no result, and ok=false as successes, so it could report PCB context synced when the MCP operation had failed.ECAD · impact 74
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.