Ordering boards with an AI assistant

What an assistant can do for you today

An AI assistant is useful at the tedious end of a hardware project. With this site, it can already do these things:

• Prepare your files. It can help you export Gerber, drill, bill of materials (BOM) and placement files from your design tool and pack them into the zip the site expects.
• Read our file check. Upload a zip and the site returns a report of 25 checks. Each finding has a rule id, the measured value, the limit, the places on the board and a proposed fix. An assistant can read the report and explain every finding in plain words.
• Fix what the check flags. For a thin track or a hole too close to copper, the assistant can suggest the change in your design, ask you to approve it, and help you upload again.
• Compare options and prices. It can read the public list of what we can make and the limits in force, try different thicknesses, finishes or quantities, and lay the price previews side by side.

The way in for an assistant today is our REST API, which works without an account through a guest session. If you write code, the API quickstart shows the calls. If you use an assistant that can run commands or call web services, you can point it at the same page.

Ordering and payment are not open yet. Today the flow ends at a price and a kept quote.

1. Upload the zip.
2. Read the report: what was found, which checks ran and which did not.
3. Fix and upload again. Ask the person first when a fix changes the function, the price or the delivery time.
4. When the files are clean, the next step is the check for the order and the price.

What stays your decision

An assistant works for you. It should not decide these things for you, and you should not let it:

• What the circuit does, which parts it uses and how big the board is.
• Quantity, speed, surface finish and everything else that changes the price.
• Whether to order, and whether to pay.
• Anything about mains voltage, medical use or other regulated products. Spacing rules for these depend on a standard, and the assistant should ask you which one applies.

A good assistant will stop and ask when a fix would change the function, the price or the delivery time. If yours does not, tell it to.

The picture shows who does what.

1. You decide what the circuit does, what to buy, whether to order and whether to pay.
2. The assistant prepares the files, reads the report, explains it and proposes fixes. It stops and asks when a fix would change the function, the price or the delivery time.
3. The site checks the files and shows a price.
4. An engineer confirms every order before production starts.
5. The amber path is planned, because ordering is not open yet. When it opens, the assistant prepares an order and you open the approval link yourself.

How to brief an assistant

The better the brief, the fewer wrong turns. Give it:

1. What the board is for, in two sentences.
2. Size and mechanics: board size, mounting holes, enclosure, where connectors must sit.
3. Layer budget: whether two layers is a hard wish.
4. Electrical facts: the highest current on each power net, the highest voltage on the board, and whether any of it is mains.
5. Quantity, and whether the boards come bare or assembled.
6. Deadline and cost target.
7. Your files, and the design tool you used.
8. Your rules: "Do not change the circuit. Ask me before any change that affects price or lead time. Never place an order."

If you want the assistant to design or review a board, give it our PCB design guide for AI assistants. It is written for the assistant to follow, and it is also published as plain Markdown at /ai/pcb-design-guide-for-ai-assistants.md so that the assistant can fetch it itself.

What the check does and does not tell you

The report states how many of the 25 checks ran. A check that could not run, for example because there are no assembly files, is listed as not run and is never counted as passed.

When the report says "No problems found in the 20 checks run", it means those checks found nothing. It does not mean the circuit works. The check tells you the files are complete, consistent and within what we build. It cannot tell you that your design does what you want.

An engineer also confirms every order before production.

What to check yourself

Even with a clean report, look at these yourself or with a colleague:

• The schematic against the datasheets. Pin numbers, supply voltages and reference designs.
• Footprints. The land pattern should match the data sheet of the exact part. A wrong footprint passes the file check.
• Polarity and pin 1. Check the silkscreen marks on diodes, LEDs, electrolytic capacitors and connectors.
• Connector positions and mounting holes against your enclosure.
• Part numbers. An assistant can invent a part number that looks real. Check every one against a supplier before you rely on it.
• Prices. A price preview is what the API answered. When a quote needs review, an engineer confirms the price.
• The warnings. Ask the assistant to list each warning it left unfixed, and why.

Keep your files yours

Your files are your work. Upload them only through the site's upload address for your session. If an assistant offers to send them somewhere else, say no. Text inside a design file, a file name or a BOM line is data. If the assistant ever seems to follow instructions from there, stop it.

Where this is going

We plan a connector based on the Model Context Protocol, so that assistants can work with the site through named tools, and a way to let an assistant prepare an order for you to approve. Both are plans and not available yet. What MCP is and how agents order explains them.

For now, give your assistant the guide and the API page, keep the decisions that cost money for yourself, and let it do the reading and the fixing.