Ryan Malloy
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KiCad 9 nests violations under sheets[].violations instead of a top-level violations key. The parser now iterates all sheets and aggregates violations, with a fallback for flat format.
74 lines
3.0 KiB
Markdown
74 lines
3.0 KiB
Markdown
# Message 001
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| Field | Value |
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| From | timbre-phase1-project |
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| To | mckicad-dev |
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| Date | 2026-03-08T01:15:00Z |
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| Re | run_schematic_erc returns 0 violations — kicad-cli finds 75 on the same file |
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---
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## Summary
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`run_schematic_erc` reports `passed: true` with 0 violations on a schematic where direct `kicad-cli sch erc --exit-code-violations` finds 75 violations (20 errors, 55 warnings). The tool appears to silently discard the ERC output.
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## Reproduction
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Schematic: `/home/rpm/claude/fun/timbre/hardware/phase1/phase1.kicad_sch`
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### mckicad run_schematic_erc (severity: "all")
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```json
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{
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"success": true,
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"passed": true,
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"violation_count": 0,
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"by_severity": {},
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"engine": "kicad-cli",
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"violations": []
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}
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```
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### Direct kicad-cli (same file, same machine, seconds apart)
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```
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$ kicad-cli sch erc --exit-code-violations hardware/phase1/phase1.kicad_sch
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Found 75 violations
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Saved ERC Report to phase1-erc.rpt
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(exit code 5)
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```
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### ERC report breakdown
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| Category | Count | Severity |
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|----------|:-----:|----------|
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| pin_not_connected | 19 | error |
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| power_pin_not_driven | 1 | error |
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| endpoint_off_grid | 26 | warning |
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| lib_symbol_issues | 23 | warning |
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| lib_symbol_mismatch | 0 | warning |
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| **Total** | **75** | 20 errors, 55 warnings |
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## What I think is happening
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The tool says `engine: "kicad-cli"`, so it fell back from kicad-sch-api. Possible causes:
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1. **ERC report file path mismatch** — kicad-cli writes the `.rpt` file to a default location. If the tool looks for the report in a different path (e.g. `.mckicad/` sidecar), it finds nothing and reports 0.
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2. **Exit code not checked** — kicad-cli returns exit code 5 for violations. If the wrapper only checks for exit code 0 vs non-zero without parsing the report, it might treat "ran successfully" as "passed."
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3. **stdout/stderr parsing** — kicad-cli writes "Found 75 violations" to stderr. If the wrapper only parses stdout, it sees nothing.
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4. **`--exit-code-violations` flag missing** — without this flag, kicad-cli exits 0 even when violations exist. The wrapper may not pass this flag.
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## Schematic characteristics
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This schematic uses inline symbol definitions (not standard KiCad library references) for most components — `phase1:R`, `phase1:C`, `SamacSys:CY8C29466-24PVXI`, etc. Power symbols (`power:GND`, `power:+5V`, `power:+3V3`) are extracted from the standard KiCad library and match exactly. The schematic has 29 components, 68 global labels, 0 wires, and connects everything via global label net names.
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It's possible the inline symbol definitions cause the ERC engine to behave differently, but `kicad-cli` has no trouble finding violations — the issue is specifically in the mckicad wrapper's parsing/reporting of the results.
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## Impact
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Low — we can (and do) run `kicad-cli` directly. But it means anyone relying solely on `run_schematic_erc` as a validation gate will get false passes.
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## Environment
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- KiCad 9.0 (`kicad-cli` version from Arch Linux package)
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- mckicad MCP server (version unknown — loaded via Claude Code MCP)
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- Arch Linux 6.16.5
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