KiCadRoutingTools: Skill for Claude Code

Review Routed Board

When this skill is invoked with a board file, run a full post-route review and present a sign-off report.

Step 1: Mechanical Checks

Run all four checkers, capturing output:

python3 -X utf8 py_router/check_drc.py board.kicad_pcb 2>&1 | tee /tmp/review_drc.txt
python3 -X utf8 py_router/check_connected.py board.kicad_pcb 2>&1 | tee /tmp/review_connectivity.txt
python3 -X utf8 py_tools/check_orphan_stubs.py board.kicad_pcb 2>&1 | tee /tmp/review_orphans.txt
python3 -X utf8 py_router/check_weird.py board.kicad_pcb 2>&1 | tee /tmp/review_weird.txt

check_weird.py is here because the other three cannot see its classes. check_orphan_stubs iterates SEGMENT endpoints and treats a via as an anchor, so it structurally cannot report a bad via; check_weird owns dangling-via (same-net copper on only one of the layers the barrel spans -- KiCad's via_dangling), unsupported-via, stacked-copper, orphan-island and kicad-dangling (a joint stub lying on one other track, which KiCad reports as track_dangling though both its ends touch copper). Measured on run 11's final board: check_orphan_stubs none, check_weird 3 dangling vias, each independently confirmed.

check_drc.py auto-grades at the clearance the routing steps wrote into the sibling .kicad_pro (the smallest clearance any step actually used, including auto-stepped fine-pitch taps), so the bare invocation above already grades at the true routed floor. Like KiCad, it floors that class at Board Setup min_clearance (#1210): an unrouted or hand-routed board whose project declares a minimum above its Default class grades at the minimum. Pass --clearance <value> only to override (e.g. to grade a hand-routed board with no routed-floor .kicad_pro).

When the board was routed from an input you have, add --baseline <the input board>. VIA-IN-PASTE rows are vias whose barrel sits in a solder-paste opening of their own net without IPC-4761 Type VII (filled AND capped); solder wicks into such a barrel. KiCad has no such check, so check_drc is the only instrument that reports them. On a KiCad 10-format board the router stamps Type VII onto every via it adds in a pad or paste opening, so these are almost always vias the input already had: --baseline accepts those (a via the input had under solder, unprotected) as inherited-via-in-paste and the console line counts them. A file older than KiCad 10 (version < 20250000) cannot carry the tokens at all, so there every such via --baseline does not inherit is accepted undeclarable-via-in-paste and counted on the same line: Type VII belongs on the fab drawing. Report whatever still fires as a fab defect: the via needs filled+capped on the fab drawing, or it must move out of the opening. Without --baseline, every pre-existing one reads as a violation (one corpus board carries 136). The same flag grades a graze of footprint graphic copper that a part MOVE created (graphic-board-edge); graphic-off-board (copper past the outline) is reported either way. KEEPOUT rows are tracks or vias inside a keep-out rule area that forbids them (an antenna clearance, a mounting hole's screw-head ring); kicad-cli 10.0.0 did not report these when measured, so check_drc is the only instrument. --baseline accepts copper the input already had there as inherited-keepout; report what still fires as a routing defect.