Pcb Copilot

CI Downloads License: MIT Platform: Windows | macOS

Firmware, mechanical, and test engineers move faster when a PCB schematic doesn't require an EE to interpret it.

pcb-copilot gives you schematic access inside Claude — no Altium license, no waiting on the EE to look something up. Your EE exports a snapshot with altium-copilot and shares one file. You open it and start asking questions.

Part of the ee-in-a-box suite.

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What it does

Who	They may ask...	What happens
Firmware	"Which GPIO is connected to the enable pin on U5?"	Traces the pin to its net, finds the MCU pin on the other end
	"What's on SPI bus 3?"	Lists every component whose chip-select, MOSI, MISO, or SCK lands on those nets
	"Are there pull-ups on the I2C lines, and what value?"	Finds the resistors on the SDA/SCL nets with their values
Mechanical	"What's the pinout of J4?"	Returns every pin number, signal name, and what it connects to
	"Which connectors carry power?"	Finds connectors with pins on power nets
Test	"How do I get to the 5V rail for a probe?"	Lists every pin on that net — connectors, test points, component legs
	"Which part is most likely to fail first under a 40V surge on the input?"	Pulls every component on that net with ratings from their datasheets
	"What's not populated in the production variant?"	Returns the full DNP list for the active build variant

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Getting the snapshot file

pcb-copilot reads a .db file exported from altium-copilot — the schematic copilot for Altium Designer.

Ask your EE to:

1. Install altium-copilot and open the project in Altium
2. Tell Claude: "Package this Altium project to share with the rest of the team" or "Export for sharing"
3. Send you the .db file (it lives next to the .PrjPcb) — via Confluence, Slack or shared drive

That file is the snapshot pcb-copilot reads. Re-request it whenever the schematic changes significantly or after another PCB release.

If your EE also publishes the project to Altium 365, you can open the schematic and PCB layout directly in a browser — no license needed. pcb-copilot and Altium 365 complement each other: use Altium 365 to visually trace a net on the board, and pcb-copilot to ask Claude questions about it.

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Requirements

• Claude Desktop or Claude Code — works with Pro and Enterprise subscriptions
• A .db snapshot from your EE (see above)

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Install

Windows:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ee-in-a-box/pcb-copilot/main/install.ps1 | iex

Mac:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ee-in-a-box/pcb-copilot/main/install.sh | bash

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Usage

Once installed, just open Claude desktop or Claude Code and ask a question about your board — pcb-copilot will automatically find your .db file in your Downloads, Desktop, or Documents folder. Or you can provide the path directly if needed.

The most reliable way to start: mention pcb-copilot by name in your message:

"Use pcb-copilot to tell me what GPIO is connected to the enable pin on U5" "Ask pcb-copilot to load my project"

After the first load, pcb-copilot remembers your file and loads it automatically in future sessions.

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Privacy

The MCP server runs locally and doesn't log anything or phone home. Schematic data is sent only to Claude via your own Pro or Enterprise subscription — it never touches any other server.

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Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

For bug reports and support, open an issue at github.com/ee-in-a-box/pcb-copilot/issues.

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License

MIT © Maisam Pyarali