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kicad-tools (rjwalters)ECADConfidence: Medium

A whole-board 'kct optimize-traces --drc-aware' pass on a freshly routed 4-layer JLCPCB board left 9 shorting items that kicad-cli DRC then found. The DRC-aware rollback was supposed to undo any merge that made DRC worse, and it did not catch them.

Impact Analysis

Persona
Electrical Engineer
Team Size Impact
5x Multiplier
Prototype Delay
3 Days
Est. Annual Cost
$30,000
  • 1 user · 1 month240 min
  • Rest of team960 min
  • Rest of year13,200 min

monthly_minutes × 12 × team_multiplier ÷ 60 × $75/hr = $30k/yr

$75/hr assumed rate.

Annual team-minutes decomposed from the reported monthly inputs.

Evidence & Sources

1 Sources
rjwalters/kicad-tools Issue #8052: kct optimize-traces --drc-aware introduces shorts its rollback does not catch
github.com
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Analyst Notes

From the Grok pain-radar digests, Oct 28-29 2026 (Oct 28 8:41 AM ET through Oct 29 early-morning Haitch editions). Verified live 2026-10-29: issue/PR read; title and state confirmed.