quickstart

quickstart is an agent for coding agents from oaslananka/kicad-mcp-pro. It costs 0 tokens per session (630 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A quick-start guide for connecting an MCP-capable AI client to KiCad and beginning with read-only project inspection.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to connect a supported client, inspect schematic structure, review ERC or DRC issues, render a preview, and confirm that no files were changed.
Why use it?
It identifies setup locations and a first validation request for clients such as Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Cline, and OpenCode.

Agent

Part of the kicad-pro plugin — 10 skills, 24 agents, 1 MCP server shipped together

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add agents/oaslananka/kicad-mcp-pro/quickstart
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/oaslananka/kicad-mcp-pro

Or install kicad-pro, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 10 skills, 24 agents, 1 MCP server.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for quickstart

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/agents/oaslananka/kicad-mcp-pro/quickstart.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/agents/oaslananka/kicad-mcp-pro/quickstart)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/agents/oaslananka/kicad-mcp-pro/quickstart"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/agents/oaslananka/kicad-mcp-pro/quickstart.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 0 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 630 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00000 $0.00630
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00315
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00126
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00063

Measured 5d ago against content hash a05f7e78b190, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

quickstart scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 5d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

docs/agents/quickstart.md · 62 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 62 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Agent quickstart matrix

Use this page when you want to connect one MCP-capable client quickly and start with a safe read-only KiCad workflow.

Open the current KiCad project, inspect the schematic hierarchy, list ERC-relevant issues, render a schematic preview, and explain what changed without modifying files.

Keep the first run read-only. Switch to write mode only after the project is backed up and you are ready to review every modification.

Client matrix

Client Setup doc Config location First validation
Claude Desktop Claude Desktop claude_desktop_config.json Ask Claude to inspect the current project without editing files.
Cursor Cursor .cursor/mcp.json Use Agent mode and ask for a read-only ERC/DRC summary.
VS Code / Copilot VS Code Copilot .vscode/mcp.json Command Palette → MCP: List Servers.
Windsurf Windsurf ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json Confirm the Cascade MCP panel shows the kicad server.
Cline Cline Cline MCP settings or ~/.cline/mcp.json Confirm the Cline panel lists the server and tools.
OpenCode OpenCode opencode.json Run opencode mcp list.

Copy-paste baseline config

Use readonly for the first connection:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "kicad": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["kicad-mcp-pro"],
      "env": {
        "KICAD_MCP_PROJECT_DIR": "/absolute/path/to/kicad/project",
        "KICAD_MCP_PROFILE": "default",
        "KICAD_MCP_OPERATING_MODE": "readonly"
      }
    }
  }
}

VS Code / Copilot uses servers instead of mcpServers; see the dedicated page for the exact shape.

Expected output

A healthy first run should give the agent enough context to summarize:

  • the active KiCad project or project path;
  • schematic hierarchy and available board files;
  • ERC/DRC-relevant findings when available;
  • preview/render status when the runtime can produce visual evidence;
  • clear warnings if KiCad CLI, project files, or rendering dependencies are unavailable.

Read the full file on GitHub · 62 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 5d ago First seen · 62 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A a05f7e78b190

Subscribe to this mod's changes

quickstart is an agent published in the GitHub repository oaslananka/kicad-mcp-pro (64 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 630 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.