Universal Netlist MCP Server

The Universal Netlist MCP Server gives AI agents the tools to understand and analyze your electrical schematics, for powerful and comprehensive design reviews through natural conversations.

It is compatible with Cadence, Altium, and KiCad, with plans to integrate more EDAs in the future. It reads your design files directly on macOS, Linux, and Windows, with no Cadence or Altium installation and no EDA license required.

Supported Formats

Format Input Files Description
Cadence (CIS / HDL) .DSN schematic, or .dat netlist files The .DSN binary schematic is parsed natively. Exported Allegro netlist files (pstxnet.dat, pstxprt.dat, pstchip.dat) are preferred where they sit beside the design
Altium Designer .SchDoc Altium schematic documents (discovered via .PrjPcb project files)
KiCad .kicad_pro (or root .kicad_sch) Reads a resolved kicadsexpr netlist export: a committed .net beside the project if present, otherwise generated on demand via kicad-cli (requires KiCad installed; set KICAD_CLI_PATH for a non-standard location)

Native Install (Recommended)

macOS / Linux:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/IntelligentElectron/universal-netlist/main/install.sh | bash

Windows (PowerShell):

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/IntelligentElectron/universal-netlist/main/install.ps1 | iex

Why use the native installer:

  • No dependencies — standalone binary, no Node.js required
  • Auto-updates — checks for updates on startup
  • Signed binaries — macOS binaries are notarized by Apple

The installer downloads two files:

  1. Binary - For CLI usage and manual MCP client configuration
  2. Claude Desktop extension (.mcpb) - For easy Claude Desktop integration
Platform Install Directory
macOS ~/Library/Application Support/universal-netlist/
Linux ~/.local/share/universal-netlist/
Windows %LOCALAPPDATA%\universal-netlist\

Update

The server checks for updates on startup. To update manually:

universal-netlist --update

Alternative: Install via npm

For developers who prefer npm:

npm install -g @intelligentelectron/universal-netlist

Or use with npx (no installation required):

npx @intelligentelectron/universal-netlist --help

Requires Node.js 20+.

To update:

npm update -g @intelligentelectron/universal-netlist

Connect the MCP with your favorite AI tool

After installing the MCP with one of the methods above, you can connect it to your AI agent of choice.

Claude Desktop

  1. Download the Claude Desktop app
  2. Open Claude Desktop and go to Settings (gear icon)
  3. Under Desktop app, click Extensions
  4. Click Advanced settings
  5. In the Extension Developer section, click Install Extension...
  6. Navigate to your install directory and select universal-netlist.mcpb:
    • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/universal-netlist/universal-netlist.mcpb
    • Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\universal-netlist\universal-netlist.mcpb

The extension will be available immediately in your conversations.

Claude Code

Install Claude Code, then run:

claude mcp add --scope user universal-netlist -- universal-netlist

OpenAI Codex

Install OpenAI Codex, then run:

codex mcp add universal-netlist -- universal-netlist

Supported Platforms

Platform Binary
macOS (Universal) universal-netlist-darwin-universal
Linux (x64) universal-netlist-linux-x64
Linux (ARM64) universal-netlist-linux-arm64
Windows (x64) universal-netlist-windows-x64.exe

Observability (OpenTelemetry)

The server can emit OpenTelemetry traces, metrics, and logs for every tool call, so you can integrate your own OTel service and see which tools are used, how long they take, and what fails. It is vendor-neutral and works with any OTLP-compatible backend (an OpenTelemetry Collector, Jaeger, Tempo, Prometheus, Honeycomb, Datadog, a managed cloud tracing service, etc.).

Telemetry is disabled by default with zero overhead, and is enabled and configured entirely through the standard OTEL_* environment variables — no code changes.

See Observability (OpenTelemetry) for setup, configuration, and the full list of emitted spans, metrics, and logs.

Documentation

See docs/ for API documentation and response schemas.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development guidelines.

Privacy Policy

The server runs on your machine and collects nothing. It reads the design files you point it at, holds them in memory for the life of a query, and sends nothing to the author, who operates no service and no backend.

Your design data does reach your MCP client and that client's model provider, because that is how you get an answer. Treat querying a confidential schematic the way you would treat pasting it into that assistant's chat window.

The only network calls the server makes are an update check against the GitHub releases API, on the standalone binary alone, and OpenTelemetry, which is off unless you point OTEL_* at your own backend. Neither carries design data.

See PRIVACY.md for the full policy, including what telemetry contains when you enable it and which tool writes to disk.

About

Created by Valentino Zegna

This project is hosted on GitHub under the IntelligentElectron organization.

Universal Netlist MCP Server and the universal netlist open standard are original works by Valentino Zegna.

Acknowledgments

The Cadence DSN binary parser is a TypeScript port of OpenOrCadParser by Dominik Wernberger. Their work reverse-engineering the OrCAD binary format made direct schematic parsing possible.

License

Apache License 2.0 - see LICENSE