Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to drandyhaas/KiCadRoutingTools. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/drandyhaas/KiCadRoutingTools/main/.claude/skills/plan-pcb-placement/SKILL.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/drandyhaas/KiCadRoutingToolsWrote 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.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/drandyhaas/kicadroutingtools/plan-pcb-placement)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/drandyhaas/kicadroutingtools/plan-pcb-placement"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/drandyhaas/kicadroutingtools/plan-pcb-placement/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/drandyhaas/kicadroutingtools/plan-pcb-placement"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/drandyhaas/kicadroutingtools/plan-pcb-placement.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>- NVIDIA SkillSpector pass
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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00209 | $0.22750 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00084 | $0.09100 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00042 | $0.04550 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00021 | $0.02275 |
Grade C, and why
plan-pcb-placement scanned grade C with 2 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 today.
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.
Recursive force deletehighDestructive command
rm -rf with a variable or a broad path is one typo away from removing the wrong tree.
4. The datasheet folder deleted (`rm -rf wk/<run>/datasheets`). Makes network callslowCapability
Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.
mangles a PDF, so download it (`curl -sSL -o <folder>/<part>.pdf <url>`) How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 1,338 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Plan PCB placement
A human lays a board out by function: the USB connector with its resistors
right behind it, the regulator and its caps between the power entry and the
loads, the MCU with its crystal on its oscillator pins, the LEDs and the
button along an edge. This skill places that way. You decide what belongs
together; py_placer/place_simple.py arranges it over several seeds; a fast
route of each keeps the best.
Invocation: /plan-pcb-placement <mode> <board.kicad_pcb> [intent.json] [--scattered N] [--clustered N] [--anchored N] [--judge N],
where mode is place or full. With no mode, use full. A given
intent.json is the intent: use it in place of emitting one (§3.2).
--scattered, --clustered, --anchored and --judge are the seeds of
each start and how many are judged (§3.6), passed to place_simple as
given; its defaults (6, 6, 0, 6) apply when they are not. Anchored seeds
(each group started round the point its wiring prefers) are opt-in.
1. The goal, per mode
| mode | input | DONE means | better, once DONE |
|---|---|---|---|
place |
an unplaced or placed board | check_assembly buildable, check_floorplan --intent 0 errors, no pad, graphic or keep-out copper off the outline, mechanical facts met, and a fast route of it with no blocking net |
fewer vias, then less copper_mm, then fewer segments, on that fast route |
full |
an unplaced or placed board | board_score blocking 0, zero unrouted, zero broken, check_complete DONE |
fewer vias, then less copper_mm, then fewer segments |
- "Better" is lexicographic, never a weighted sum. A lower via count never buys back an open net.
- Below DONE, open connections outrank vias and copper. Between two
boards of equal
blocking, the one whosejoins_needed(inboard_scoreandquick_scoreJSON: the joins its open nets still need) is lower is better, whatever its vias or copper:unroutedcounts a net as 1 whatever its size, and a board missing a 17-pad rail has fewer vias because the rail is missing. Vias, copper_mm and segments break a tie only after that. - In
placemode the fast route is your own check.scripts/grade.py --mode placeand the verifier grade the placement, not a route; keep the fast-routed board and its score JSON (quick_score) as the evidence for the "no blocking net" condition. - The routed board judges a placement, not the objective's cost, crossings or hpwl. Those only rank candidates you have not routed yet.
- DONE is measured with every spec the board declares. Pass
--net-min-widths,--impedance-nets,--length-groups(a FILE) and--min-track-width/--min-via-diameter/--min-via-drilltoboard_scoreandcheck_complete. Anungradedcomponent is UNEXAMINED, not passed.--impedance-netsgrades reference-plane continuity: a net that crosses a gap in its reference plane (a track on that plane cuts one) is blocking. - Matching the original layout does not count. A human layout is a benchmark to approach, not a pose to match.
What ships with it
7 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.
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.
- today Changed · +178 lines 7114bc30262d
- 3d ago Changed · +104 lines b8a7b58fafd6
- 4d ago Changed · +39 lines d8aeee99f4bf
- 5d ago Changed · -720 lines · +94 tokens per session scan A → C 83bd5efb364f
- 1mo ago Changed · -1 lines c1c1fbdff536
- 1mo ago Changed · +11 lines f358ff34c173
- 1mo ago Changed · +43 lines 8cc0826a1f1a
- 1mo ago Changed · +1 lines b62e79c14d63
- 1mo ago Changed · +72 lines fb5eae28c473
- 1mo ago First seen · 1,611 lines · 115 tokens per session scan A 06fcc903c277
plan-pcb-placement is a skill published in the GitHub repository drandyhaas/KiCadRoutingTools (706 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 209 tokens to every session and 22,750 once invoked, about $0.0008 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it C with 2 findings (recursive force delete, makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.
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