PCBA Studio works with Altium Designer

With PCBA Studio's own MCP server, pcba altium mcp, and the altium-designer skill, an AI agent creates and edits Altium Designer projects: libraries, schematics, boards, rules, routing, and outputs. Every change is planned and previewed before it runs, and verified after.

Download the skill Install PCBA Studio

From library parts to output files

The agent sends typed operations to pcba altium mcp. PCBA Studio checks each one, runs it in your open Altium session, and reads the result back.

New projects, with schematic and PCB documents bound to them
Schematic symbols with pins and multiple parts, and footprints with SMD or through-hole pads, silkscreen, and simple 3D bodies
Schematic sheets: parts from your libraries, wires, net labels, power ports, junctions, and title block fields
Update PCB from the schematic, then board outline, placement on either side, net classes, design rules, polygons, and silkscreen text
Routing in two passes: critical nets drawn by plan and locked, the rest with Altium's Situs autorouter
Altium's design rule check, with the violations reported per rule
Gerber, NC drill, pick-and-place, BOM, STEP, and a schematic PDF from an OutJob, each file listed with its SHA-256 hash

Ask in plain language

Prompt

Create a project called Demo with two 4-pin connectors, J1 and J2.
Connect pin 1 to pin 1 as SIG_1, pin 2 to pin 2 as SIG_2, pin 3 to GND,
and pin 4 to VCC. Make a 40 x 25 mm two-layer board with the Newmatik
house rules, route SIG_1 and SIG_2 as locked 0.3 mm tracks, autoroute
the rest, run DRC, and write Gerber, drill, pick-and-place, BOM, and STEP.

Nothing changes in Altium until a plan is approved. Each step comes back first as a preview: the operations it will run, the nets it expects afterwards compared with the current sheets, and a screenshot for a schematic change. After approval, the agent applies the plan, verifies it, and reports what it checked.

Every change is a plan

An agent that edits a design it cannot see well does damage quietly. PCBA Studio sends every write to Altium down the same path: inspect, plan, approve, apply, verify, record.

Typed operations, never scripts: The agent places a part or draws a wire with checked arguments in mils or millimeters. No tool accepts code written by the agent. Each operation becomes a call into a fixed script library in Altium, and PCBA Studio checks that library's SHA-256 hash before every request.
Nothing runs without the plan's hash: A plan validates every operation and changes nothing. It runs once, and only when the approval carries its hash. Every apply, including a failed one, is recorded in .pcba/altium-changes.jsonl in the project folder.
Two netlists, not one: After a schematic change, Altium compiles the project and PCBA Studio reads the saved sheets from their wire geometry. Both netlists must match the nets the plan expected. Board steps are checked against Altium's ECO log, its DRC report, and a fresh read of the board.
Unsaved work comes first: If Altium stalls on a request, PCBA Studio closes its error dialogs, stops the script, and checks that Altium answers again. A restart is never the default: it runs only when explicitly allowed, because it loses unsaved work.

Newmatik house DFM in Altium

Newmatik's house DFM rules reach Altium in two ways. They are a starting point for your design, not a promise that it can be built.

A rules file Altium imports: pcba altium house-rules writes twelve rules, covering clearance, track width, vias, holes, solder mask, paste, silkscreen, component spacing, and plane clearance, as a .RUL file for Design > Rules > Import Rules. They use Altium's default rule names, so they replace the defaults instead of competing with them. The agent can also set eleven of them on an open board as a plan. Each rule states its status: most values are proposed until Newmatik process engineering confirms them.
A fiducial check: Altium has no rule for fiducials, so the agent reads them from the open board. Every side with SMD parts needs three global fiducials: round 1.0 mm pads with a 3.0 mm mask opening, no paste, and no net, forming a real triangle across the board. The result is a list of findings, never a sign-off.

Set it up

Step 1
Install PCBA Studio on the Altium PC
Install the engine on the Windows PC where Altium Designer runs, as the install page describes. pcba altium status then shows whether it finds Altium and whether Altium is running.
Step 2
Connect your agent
Register pcba altium mcp as an MCP server in your agent, as shown below. Then download altium-designer.zip from this page and add it as a skill: upload it in Claude, or unpack it into your agent's skills folder.
Step 3
Describe the change
Ask for a library part, a sheet, a board step, or outputs. Read each plan's preview before you approve it, and review the result in Altium as you would a colleague's work.

MCP client configuration

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pcba-altium": { "command": "pcba", "args": ["altium", "mcp"] }
  }
}

Local, and apart from the review

pcba altium mcp runs on your PC and talks only to the Altium instance there. Nothing about the design is sent to pcbastudio.com. Your agent's provider sees what you share with the agent, including the operations and Altium's answers. Driving Altium is kept apart from the review: pcba review and the review MCP server never load it.

Requirements and limits

Windows, with Altium Designer or Altium Designer Develop running in a logged-in session. One request at a time, and never in CI.
Parts come from file-based .SchLib and .PcbLib libraries. Altium 365 workspace components cannot be placed by script yet.
The second netlist needs a flat project with global net names. A hierarchical design is checked against Altium's compiler alone.
Text, including paths and names with umlauts, reaches Altium as character codes; control characters are refused. If Altium cannot open the drive's script because of your user profile path, set PCBA_ALTIUM_HOME to move the exchange folder.

What stays with you

Sign-off of critical routing. The agent draws the nets you specify as planned and leaves the rest to Situs. Whether impedance, lengths, and return paths are right is your decision.
Mechanical fit. Check the outline, mounting holes, connector positions, and component heights against the enclosure.
Part choices. The agent places the symbols and footprints you give it or ask it to draw. It does not choose parts or vouch for a footprint.
Release. A clean DRC and a passed fiducial check are inputs to your review, not a release. Output files are listed with their hashes, not inspected; CAM checks stay with your manufacturer and with Gerbtrace.

Altium and Altium Designer are trademarks of Altium Limited (a Renesas company). PCBA Studio is not affiliated with or endorsed by Altium.