Copperhead - AI agent for circuit board design
Show HN: Copperhead – Hardware as Fast as Software
Copperhead is an open-source AI agent that designs, documents, and verifies printed circuit boards (PCBs). It works like pair programming, but the codebase is a circuit board. You describe a change or provide a product brief, and Copperhead edits your KiCad files, updates all related documents, and runs ERC/DRC checks until they pass. It prevents design drift by enforcing specs and keeping everything in sync. The CLI is free and open-source, with cloud and team plans for collaboration and governance. Built on KiCad and OpenSpec, it outputs standard files with no lock-in.
A loop, not a chatbot. It looks a lot like pair programming, except the codebase is a circuit board.
- mikeayles
The space is definitely heating up.
Flux.ai being the incumbent
Silixon based out of the UK have been showing demos
Quilter and DeepPCB for layout
The recent OpenAI demo...
I went the other way and pre-designed sub circuits with a set of rules that allows simple merge assembly, unfortunately I didn't have the time or budget to continue with it, but I took the constrained approach as with hardware, things can't be 99%.
The one thing I will say, is that my experience of hardware engineers is very gatekeepy.
Any questions about the use of AI for any form of automation on forums/Reddit get shot down instantly and the OP's told 'skill issue' more or less. In my opinion, just as with software, most work is simple and should be automated, there will always be a need for the real engineering when it comes to high specification work, high volume optimisation and hardware debug (although Claude code is pretty handy at driving a Jlink)
- jimberlage
This is probably not the primary way people use the tool, but if I log in (desktop, Chrome on macOS), click "Start a board" on the sidebar, and go to click any of the inputs, I can't type text in them (the inputs are "Start from an example", "What are you building", and "The brief".
- danielmorozoff
Has anyone had experience with Copperhead vs Astra and kicad? Looking for a similar tool soon
- aitchnyu
Why would somebody ever use a hosted version? I see
"One-click gerber, DXF/STEP, render and BOM export" and "Altium support beyond KiCad" in cloud plans, dunno if they are compelling.
- tylergetsay
Can I take the output of this and get a fully assembled board mailed to me? Thats my dream...