Autoroute a board

You have a netlist and footprints and want the board routed automatically. This guide places the components, runs the autorouter, verifies the result, and previews it. It assumes an MCP-connected agent (see the quickstart).

The shape of the workflow is: place → autoroute → verify → preview.

1. Place the components

The router works from component positions, so place the footprints first. Good placement is the single biggest factor in routability.

“Run run_placement on the current board and report the resulting layout.”

If the result looks crowded or leaves long crossing connections, re-run run_placement before routing — fixing placement now is cheaper than fighting the router later.

2. Autoroute

Route the board. The autorouter uses A* search with rip-up/retry and works across multiple layers, so it will back out and re-route earlier traces when a later net gets blocked.

“Call run_autorouter and route every net, then report completion percentage.”

If the router can’t reach 100%, the usual fixes are improving placement (back to step 1) or giving it another layer to work with.

3. Verify

A completed route is not the same as a correct one. Run the design-rule check to confirm clearances, widths, and connectivity.

“Run run_drc on the routed board and list any violations.”

Resolve violations and re-run run_drc until clean. For impedance and diff-pair checks on high-speed nets, see Run design-rule checks.

4. Preview

Render the routed board so you can eyeball the result before moving on.

“Render the board with render_pcb_svg.”

Once the board routes cleanly, continue to Export for fabrication.