Importing a KiCad project that has a board but no schematic failed with a vague error. In one customer workspace, agents worked around it by hand-generating a schematic from the board, which took 14 to 19 minutes per board. The import now rejects layout-only projects up front.
Recurring agent failure issue in pcb (diodeinc)
What engineers report
A recurring agent failure problem in pcb (diodeinc) that mostly hits the electrical engineer.
Failure pattern: agent / 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 pcb (diodeinc).
Evidence
More recurring errors in pcb (diodeinc)
- A KiCad import left out the track and via presets, and the next layout wrote 0.127 mm tracks and 0.25/0.15 vias into the .kicad_pro, below the imported minimums. Nothing errored, because the board rules came in one door and a library default came in another, and the default won.ECAD · impact 74
- Since Oct 22, four of nine real customer board imports broke in pcb import. Causes: KiCad exports PWR_FLAG symbols with real references like FLG1, so the schematic and PCB consistency check failed; KiCad nightly files failed after ERC with an opaque KiCad DRC failed; DRC timed out on large boards; and a failed import left partial output behind.ECAD · impact 74
- The pcb importer only patched the footprint into the generated .kicad_sym, so every part fell back to the library symbol defaults. MPN and manufacturer were never written, the designator prefix came from the library reference, and an instance marked in_bom yes on a library symbol marked in_bom no silently left the BOM.ECAD · impact 74
- A second pcb layout with no source changes still rewrote the board, adding 188 thickness lines and moving PCB_GIT_HASH on KiCad 10's StickHub demo. A sync that does not settle looks like a dirty board even when nothing in the design changed.ECAD · impact 66
- Bumping a footprint from 0.1.3 to 0.2.0 loaded the new pads but kept the old embedded STEP model when both versions used the same filename, because KiCad stores embedded files once per board, keyed by filename. A shared-filename conflict now fails the sync and names both footprints.ECAD · impact 66
- Diode's API renamed Money from amountMinor to amountMicros. The pcb CLI still read the old field, so every match response failed to parse, and pcb bom only logged a debug warning and printed a BOM with no offers, stock or prices, then exited 0. The fix makes a failed availability fetch an error.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.