Question 1

What is Circuitly?

Accepted Answer

Circuitly is an agentic circuit design platform. AI agents work directly inside your native KiCad and Altium files — placing components, wiring nets, generating symbols, running BOM checks — while you steer the process through a Plan + Edit workflow. Everything happens in a Git-auditable workspace with a visual ECAD environment, so you can see exactly what the agents are building, verify their work visually, and roll back anything that doesn't look right.

Question 2

How is Circuitly different from using ChatGPT or other AI tools for PCB design?

Accepted Answer

General-purpose AI tools can answer electronics questions, but they have no workspace — no way to open your schematic, check their own output, or course-correct. Circuitly gives agents the domain expertise specific to electronics design (DRC rules, datasheet interpretation, component lifecycle data), a visual ECAD environment where they can verify what they're building, and a Git-native workspace where every change is auditable and reversible. It's the difference between asking for advice and having a capable junior engineer with the right tools actually execute the work.

Question 3

What ECAD tools does Circuitly support?

Accepted Answer

KiCad and Altium are live today. Cadence and Siemens tool support is currently in development. Your existing files work as-is — no conversion, no proprietary formats, no switching cost.

Question 4

What can the agents actually do?

Accepted Answer

Agents can research and select components from real distributor data (checking availability, lifecycle, and pricing), generate library-ready symbols and footprints from datasheets, place and wire components in your schematic, run BOM checks and flag EOL or at-risk parts, and review designs against your constraints. Multiple agents work these tasks in parallel while you stay in control through plan and edit modes.

Question 5

Will AI replace electrical engineers?

Accepted Answer

No — and Circuitly is built on the opposite premise. We believe the 5–20 years of skills you've built around your ECAD tools are hugely valuable. Electrical engineering is inherently subjective — what counts as a "good" schematic depends on your organization's standards, your project, and your judgment. Circuitly lets you work with agents to define what good looks like, interact with them during the design process, and encode your team's conventions into reusable skills. The agents extend your capacity; your expertise drives the outcome.

Question 6

How does the Plan + Edit mode work?

Accepted Answer

In Plan mode, you work with agents to define the task — pulling in datasheets, supply-chain data, library requirements, and design constraints so the work starts with the right context. Once you're aligned, switch to Edit mode and agents execute: creating symbols, placing components, wiring connections, all following your design rules. You can review their work visually in the ECAD environment at every step, provide feedback, and roll back any change through Git. It's like managing a junior engineer — you set direction, they execute, you review.

Question 7

How does version control work?

Accepted Answer

Everything is Git-native. Agent work, your edits, and team contributions all flow through the same Git-based review process. You can compare schematic changes visually, review diffs, and merge with confidence. If an agent makes a change you don't like, roll it back with a single operation. Your existing code review and collaboration workflows extend naturally to hardware design.

Question 8

Can I customize agents to match my team's standards?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Since electronics design is subjective — there's no single "correct" way to lay out a schematic — Circuitly lets you define what good looks like through skills and interactive feedback. Your symbol conventions, net naming rules, schematic layout preferences, and component library standards can all be encoded so agents consistently produce work that matches how your team does things.

Question 9

Why not just put an LLM inside a CAD tool?

Accepted Answer

Other AI startups are either trying to shoehorn LLMs into CAD environments that aren't optimized for them, or trying to eliminate the need for ECAD altogether. Both miss the point. Circuitly handles the hard problems of building agentic systems for ECAD: converting CAD files into representations LLMs can reason about, optimizing which model and context is needed for each specific task, giving agents a visual workspace to verify their output, and building the domain-specific knowledge (pin tables, absolute maximum ratings, thermal constraints) that generic models lack.

Question 10

How does Circuitly ensure the agents produce accurate results?

Accepted Answer

Three layers. First, parsing, coordinate math, ERC rules, and footprint validation are fully deterministic — we don't use LLMs for problems that have precise answers. Second, agents work in a visual ECAD environment where they can check their own work, and you can inspect every change before it's committed. Third, everything is Git-auditable — every agent action is tracked, reviewable, and reversible. We also run continuous evaluations against ground-truth data and optimize model selection per task so the right model handles the right problem.

Question 11

Why are purely deterministic AI approaches a bad fit for circuit design?

Accepted Answer

Rule-based systems struggle because electronics design is deeply subjective. What counts as a "good" schematic depends on organizational standards, project requirements, and engineering judgment. A formal rule database can't capture why one engineer prefers a particular power supply topology, or why a specific layout convention exists at a given company. Circuitly combines deterministic validation (DRC, ERC, footprint checks) where precision matters with LLM-based reasoning where context and preference matter — and gives you the interface to teach the agents your team's definition of "good."

Question 12

How do you handle IP and data security?

Accepted Answer

Your design files stay in your Git repositories with your existing access controls. We don't train models on your proprietary designs. We're building for hardware teams where IP protection is non-negotiable.

Question 13

What file formats does Circuitly support?

Accepted Answer

KiCad project files (.kicad_sch, .kicad_pcb, and library files) and Altium files (.SchDoc, .PcbDoc) are supported today, with Cadence and Siemens formats in development. Your existing projects work as-is — just point Circuitly at your Git repo.

Question 14

Do I need to switch away from my current ECAD tool?

Accepted Answer

No. Circuitly is an AI layer for your existing tools, not a replacement. Keep using KiCad, Altium, or your preferred tools for the work you already do well — manual layout, fine-tuning, simulation — and use Circuitly's agents for the tasks that benefit from agentic automation. Zero switching cost.

Question 15

Is Circuitly suitable for small hardware teams?

Accepted Answer

Small teams often feel the pressure of limited engineering bandwidth the most — every respin costs time and money you can't afford. Circuitly's agents multiply your team's capacity by handling parallel workstreams that would otherwise bottleneck on a single engineer. Our cost model shows approximately 39 hours saved per board revision.

Question 16

How do I get started?

Accepted Answer

Book a call with our team or join the waitlist. We'll walk through your current workflow, show how Circuitly fits in, and get you started with a design partner engagement on your actual projects.

Agentic Circuit Design.

Cut cycle times with multi-agent workflows

An AI layer for your existing tools

Find and use the right parts faster

How it works

Plan Together

Build in Edit mode

Review and merge

Help Shape the Future of Circuit Design.

Frequently Asked Questions

Build the future of hardware with agentic workflows