KiCad-AI-Assistant (paul356) errors

12 recurring problems engineers report in KiCad-AI-Assistant (paul356), ranked by impact.

#35 by errors trackedECAD

Recurring KiCad-AI-Assistant (paul356) errors, by impact

  1. 1On Windows with a machine-wide proxy, the system bypasses localhost but not 127.0.0.1, and the plugin always calls its MCP server at 127.0.0.1, so every tool call went to the proxy and failed. The plugin then wrongly reported KiCad IPC API not enabled, sending users to a preference that was already set correctly.ECAD · Agent failure · 1 report74
  2. 2Symbols with pins numbered P$1, P$2 could not map to footprints with pads 1, 2, and the agent had no tool to change a pin number, only to read pins. KiCad keeps two copies of a symbol, the .kicad_sym library and the schematic's embedded lib_symbols cache, and a library edit does not update the cache that KiCad actually draws for placed parts.ECAD · Agent failure · 1 report74
  3. 3The agent called get_skill 0 times while calling set_footprint_position 600+ times, even after the skill catalog was made mandatory in the prompt, so the agent never reads handed context unless the tool layer injects it.ECAD · Agent failure · 1 report74
  4. 4The KiCad AI Assistant plugin would not show up in KiCad after following the README: the bundled README told users to copy the folder in as kicad_ai_plugin while the archive root is kicad_ai_assistant, and gave %APPDATA%\kicad\<ver>\scripting\plugins as the Windows target instead of <Documents>\KiCad\<ver>\3rdparty\plugins. The required Preferences, Plugins, Enable KiCad API step was undocumented, setup_plugin.bat failed silently with no exit-code propagation, and uv was an undocumented prerequisite. The MCP bridge did not work until several environment fixes.ECAD · Agent failure · 1 report74
  5. 5A KiCad AI plugin's update check has failed against every published release, because it needs a checksum file that no release carries. It reports check your network connection for every failure and logs nothing, and the author found 0 matching log lines out of 622,924.ECAD · Agent failure · 1 report66
  6. 6A KiCad AI plugin's updater reported failure after a successful install, because every probe failure collapsed into 'unknown version' with no log line, and the same false reading triggered needless dependency upgrades.ECAD · Agent failure · 1 report66
  7. 7A user reports the KiCad AI Assistant cannot run ERC on the project KiCad already has open, failing with 'Path is outside trusted directories', while manual ERC works. Fix PR #269, in the same chunk, found the MCP server's trust root was its own data folder, not the project, and the ERC tests mocked the KiCad call so the validation layer never ran.ECAD · Agent failure · 1 report66
  8. 8Adding a symbol drops the values of private library fields, and KiCad then silently stops reading the sheet.ECAD · Agent failure · 1 report66
  9. 9The agent's tool edited a pin name in the symbol library, but KiCad draws the copy cached inside each schematic, so the change never reached parts already placed. The agent had no way to push it through. The fix adds a refresh that reports pins added, removed, renamed, renumbered and moved, and warns that wires on moved pins were not relocated.ECAD · Agent failure · 1 report66
  10. 10The AI router's 45-degree routes still contain segments far shorter than track width, down to 0.009 mm, while the final copper audit says ACCEPT. A review found the acceptance wording only covered new segments, not pre-existing ones.ECAD · Agent failure · 1 report66
  11. 11The assistant's courtyard collision check ignored board side. A top-side part placed over a bottom-side part counted as an overlap, so the move got rejected or the part got shoved somewhere else. Free-space search and group placement inherited the same blind spot. Only the flip tool looked at layers. An agent placing parts on a two-sided board was working from a flattened picture of it.ECAD · Agent failure · 1 report66
  12. 12When a symbol extends a base symbol, every private library field shares one merge key, so only the last survives on the placed part. The netlist is fine and KiCad opens the sheet. The design notes are just gone.ECAD · Agent failure · 1 report66

How it fails

  1. Agent failure12

Sourced from public community reports. Costs and delays on individual entries are modeled estimates, not measurements.