Sao coincell adaptor

KiCad Automation Experiments

This repository is set up to test GitHub Actions automation for KiCad hardware projects.

GitHub Actions

Two hardware workflows are configured:

• Hardware CI (.github/workflows/hardware.yml) runs on hardware and CI config changes.
• Hardware PR Visual Diff (.github/workflows/hardware-pr-diff.yml) runs on pull requests.

Checks And Outputs

• ERC: schematic electrical rules.
• DRC: PCB design rules.
• Zone fill check: verifies filled copper zones.
• Schematic PDF: review copy of the schematic.
• PCB layer PDFs: review plots for board layers.
• BOMs: generic and JLCPCB CSV outputs.
• Fabrication files: Gerbers, drills, and zip packages.
• 3D model: browser-viewable board model when export works.
• GitHub Pages site: per-board review pages.
• PR visual diff: schematic and PCB image diffs against the base branch.
• PR bot comment: links to visual diff artifacts.

Repo Layout

• actions/discover, actions/build, and actions/viewer: reusable KiCad review actions. Hardware CI calls them at Hackin7/kicad-automation-experiments/actions/<name>@main, the same way another repository would.
• .github/kicad-viewer.yml: optional project names, slugs, and production paths for this repo.
• .github/workflows/: GitHub Actions workflows.
• .github/hardware/projects.json: board registry still used by the pull request diff workflow.
• .github/hardware/report_summary.py: ERC/DRC summary formatter.
• hardware/: KiCad project source files.
• docs/: project notes and documentation.

Boards are discovered from committed .kicad_pro files. .github/kicad-viewer.yml pins the names and slugs used by the published review site. The pull request diff workflow still reads .github/hardware/projects.json.

Use in another repository

jobs:
  discover:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    outputs:
      projects: ${{ steps.discover.outputs.projects }}
      matrix: ${{ steps.discover.outputs.matrix }}
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v6
      - id: discover
        uses: Hackin7/kicad-automation-experiments/actions/discover@main
  build:
    needs: discover
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    strategy:
      fail-fast: false
      matrix: ${{ fromJson(needs.discover.outputs.matrix) }}
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v6
      - uses: Hackin7/kicad-automation-experiments/actions/build@main
        with:
          project: ${{ toJson(matrix) }}
  viewer:
    needs: [discover, build]
    if: ${{ always() && needs.discover.result == 'success' }}

The build job is optional. Without it, the viewer still publishes KiCanvas and any committed production files. An optional .github/kicad-viewer.yml can set name, slug, production, kibot, and enabled for each project path. {dir} and {basename} placeholders work in production and KiBot paths.

Notes

JLCPCB BoM is working (entry using JLCPCB Plugin into PCB design)

Future TODOs

• Allow Preview of PRs on Github Pages -> board + diff ui (a better diff ui would be nice)
  • Improve the diff such that it syncs up between commits
  • iBOM cannot be displayed in the web browser on PR preview
• Test of effectiveness on a private repo (PR actions etc.)
  • if there's a local/ web app to download Github CI results and view them for private repos
• Improve Website UI (feels very Vibe Coded)
  • Integrate the various components more cohesively when possible
  • Refactor the codebase to be nicer for humans

Generated CI files are uploaded as Actions artifacts and published on the review site. Source KiCad files stay under hardware/. The reusable actions live under actions/.