[fxp]

Plugin type (required) / 插件类型（必填）

• UI Plugin / 是 UI 插件 — provides MCP Apps interactive pages / 提供 MCP Apps 交互页面
• Standard plugin / 普通插件（非 UI）
• Not applicable / 不适用

Affected plugin name(s) / 涉及的插件名称：kicad (UI Plugin)

What / 改动内容

Adds the kicad community UI plugin (external_plugins/kicad, source in ui-plugins/kicad, icon in assets/kicad, one marketplace.json entry).

User problem. An agent can design a two-layer PCB with the user's local KiCad 10 — circuit spec → real KiCad symbol/footprint libraries → auto-route → DRC → Gerber/BOM/pos — and the user sees and checks the result inside the conversation instead of in a pile of files.

Visible behaviour. A session side panel (ui.surfaces[board], also shown inline for kicad_board_view) with tabs: Board (3D render, DRC verdict, part list), Live (the editor the user already has open, read through KiCad's own API), Layers, 3D views, Schematic, Checks (DRC + ERC), Library browser, Artifacts. "Open in KiCad" exports a normal KiCad project and opens the real PCB Editor; every ⌘S is imported back as a new artifact with a DRC run.

Screenshots (the real ZCode window, a fresh profile, the plugin installed through the app's Plugin Marketplace; a real agent turn built the board):

UI integration. One App per page (official @modelcontextprotocol/ext-apps, handlers before connect(), no window.zcode, availableDisplayModes: ["inline", "fullscreen"]), host theme/locale, widget state and message/updateModelContext only behind capability checks, onteardown; kicad_board_view carries _meta.ui.resourceUri/surface; eight tools are app-only; the initial tool result is 2.1 KB structured / 0.4 KB content (host limits 64 / 32 KiB).

Tested.

• pnpm install --frozen-lockfile, the root builder staging, validate.py (48 plugins), build_dist.build_zip (32 files, 256 KiB, no binaries), test-mcp-app-artifacts.mjs (kicad PASS), oxlint (0 warnings in kicad), pnpm --filter @zcode/plugin-kicad test 14/14 (also with a stdlib-only Python 3.12 and on a case-sensitive volume), the repository's Python unit tests 31/31, git diff --check.
• pnpm test:e2e: real KiCad 10.0.6 + headless Chrome through the official App/AppBridge handshake (20 checks, light/dark, en/zh).
• ZCode's own desktop e2e harness with the real host, and the app itself: installed through the Plugin Marketplace into a fresh profile, a real agent turn built a board and every panel tab worked.
• Not run: the repository CI itself (this was checked on macOS; the macOS-only paths skip elsewhere), the full pnpm build/build_dist.py for all plugins (blocked here by photocraft's Rust toolchain), "Open in KiCad" against a real GUI.

Version / registration. 0.6.0 in plugin.json, marketplace.json, package.json; category developer-tools; componentTypes: ["ui"].

Dependencies, network, side effects. KiCad 10 is used from the user's installation (not bundled). The MCP server is Python: it needs uv (the plugin then fetches fastmcp, pydantic, numpy and optionally kicad-python on first start) or a Python ≥ 3.11 that has them; without either the plugin still starts, the panel says what to install (kicad_setup_help). uv runs with UV_NO_CONFIG=1. Commands run: kicad-cli, KiCad's bundled Python, uv, and open -a "PCB Editor.app" on request. Files: ./kicad/ in the workspace (the file tools are confined to the workspace; nothing user-edited is overwritten) and the plugin data directory; KiCad runs on a private config so the user's ~/Library/Preferences/kicad is never rewritten. The Live tab polls KiCad's local API socket while the panel is open. No hooks, no telemetry.

Provenance / licenses. MIT. server/kicad/ is the author's own KiCad worker (placement, router, DRC, fabrication export); icon is original artwork (assets/icon-sources.json); bundled SDK notices in dist/THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt; KiCad (GPL-3.0-or-later, not redistributed), fastmcp, pydantic, numpy, kicad-python licenses listed in the README.

Follow-up. An optional macOS-only part (an Edit tab that shows and operates KiCad's real windows through a small native helper app) is deliberately not in this PR; it is a separate stacked PR (0.7.0).

Self-check / 自查清单

• Plugin name is unique kebab-case; new external plugin directory is external_plugins/kicad/
• Usage category is set (developer-tools)
• Plugin type and affected names are declared above
• version bumped in BOTH plugin.json and marketplace.json (new plugin, 0.6.0)
• README.md (EN) and README_CN.md (中文) both present and equivalent
• description_i18n has both en and zh-CN
• No secrets, machine-specific paths, or private dependencies
• Model/API/network dependencies documented
• python3 scripts/validate.py and python3 scripts/build_dist.py pass locally (build_dist for kicad alone: the rest of the repository's build is blocked here by photocraft's Rust toolchain)

[panda920]

✅ Internal validation passed. A ZCode maintainer will review the change next; after acceptance, release checks run separately and this PR is closed automatically.

[panda920]

Thanks for your contribution! The change has been accepted by the maintainers. Publication to the marketplace is tracked separately; this contribution is now closed.