Export for fabrication

You have a finished board and want the file set a fabricator needs to build it. This guide takes you from a manufacturability check through copper and drill output, BOM and pick-and-place files, and a cost estimate. It assumes an MCP-connected agent (see the quickstart).

The shape of the workflow is: verify → copper → drill → BOM and pick-and-place → cost.

1. Verify manufacturability

Before exporting anything, confirm the board can actually be built. Run a design-for-manufacturing check — it flags issues a fab will reject, such as undersized annular rings, sliver traces, or holes too close to the edge.

“Run run_dfm on the current board and summarize any violations by severity.”

Resolve every flagged issue before continuing — a clean DFM pass here saves a re-spin later. For a full electrical design-rule pass, see Run design-rule checks.

2. Export copper layers

Generate Gerber X2 for the copper, solder mask, silkscreen, and board outline. This is the core deliverable every fab consumes.

“Call export_gerber and give me the Gerber X2 bundle.”

Keep the returned file set together — fabs expect all layers in one package.

3. Generate the drill program

Produce the drill output for holes and vias. This complements the Gerbers and tells the fab where and how big to drill.

“Run generate_drill_gcode for the current board.”

4. Build the BOM and pick-and-place

Assembly needs two things beyond copper: what parts to buy (BOM) and where to put them (pick-and-place / CPL).

Start with a generic BOM for general use:

“Call generate_bom and show me the line items.”

If you are ordering assembly from JLCPCB, generate their formatted BOM and pick-and-place files instead — they map directly to the JLCPCB upload fields:

“Call generate_jlcpcb_bom, then generate_jlcpcb_cpl to produce the pick-and-place file.”

5. Estimate cost and pick a fab

With the files in hand, get a cost estimate and a recommendation for where to build.

“Call estimate_cost, then recommend_fab_by_joules to choose where to build.”

estimate_cost gives you the price; recommend_fab_by_joules ranks fabs against your design so you can pick on more than price alone.

Mechanical export

If your design also has 3D geometry (enclosure, brackets, mechanicals), export it alongside the board files in whichever neutral format the next tool expects:

• export_stl — STL mesh, for 3D printing or quick visualization.
• export_gltf — glTF, for web and rendering.
• export_brep — B-Rep, for downstream parametric CAD editing.

“Export the enclosure with export_stl and export_brep.”

For the complete list of supported import and export formats, see the formats reference.