Codex

Use Codex Astra for PCB trace routing, component placement, and electrical review in KiCad and Fusion. Adom connects Astra's design reasoning to real EDA applications, so it can inspect a board, make native editor changes, and verify the result.

PCB routing and component placement

• Route traces: calculate paths from pads and nets, commit traces and vias in the live editor, and check connectivity and native DRC.
• Place components: work with the connected EDA application's placement controls, accounting for pad access, clearances, routing space, and power/return paths. Inspect the actual board and preserve the original before making changes.
• Review the electrical design: examine power copper, return paths, thermal bottlenecks, and multilayer connectivity alongside the routing geometry.

The latest BQ example demonstrates independent placement, routing and native 3D comparison. Earlier rerouting recordings retain the original component placement. The EDA workflows run from Codex in Hydrogen through the relevant application bridges and do not require Codex Desktop or the separate Codex Bridge described later.

Latest: Astra places, routes and compares the board in 3D

Watch the narrated 4:12 meeting video and read the method. All 109 elements were moved off-board before a fresh placement; the ending compares Adonis and Astra in native Fusion 3D.

EDA guides

• Astra: live KiCad routing and comparison log
• Astra: Fusion electronics routing and verification
• BMS: 3D X-ray comparison, current-density maps and all 236 nets
• Electrical-aware routing and copper-ablation worked example

Astra drives live KiCad

The videos below are real KiCad window recordings. Astra runs in the Adom Hydrogen container and sends explicit trace-routing commands through Adom Bridge to KiCad on AdomLapper. Idle footage is trimmed; routing plays at 3x with explanatory captions.

Six nets: the first trace-routing demo

Download the 23-second video. Six nets, 13 pads, 20 trace segments and two vias. KiCad measured zero DRC errors and zero unconnected items; three warnings identify synthetic footprint libraries.

24-net crossover: calculated paths and branches

Download the 31-second video. A permutation maps each input to an output column. Horizontal front-layer traces cross vertical back-layer traces, and each net branches to a third pad. Result: 72 pads, 120 segments, 48 vias, zero DRC errors, zero unconnected items, and three synthetic-library warnings.

This establishes explicit per-net/per-trace control. The crossover fixture uses a constructed routing algorithm; it is not evidence of arbitrary-board autorouting.

Public Adom board: first routing pass

Download the preview. Uses the public Adom Teazzers Solenoid Driver RP2040 v1.1, with 94 footprints and five channels. Astra calculates paths independently, then commits them live through Adom Bridge. Precomputed geometry and 3x playback are labeled. This first pass adds 60 connections as 106 segments, reducing native open items from 118 to 60. Five baseline errors remain. This is the earlier partial run; the full comparison below completes connectivity.

Real Adom boards

The public Teazzers comparison shows the reference, a stripped copy, independently calculated routing, and measured native KiCad results. Only publicly accessible designs are used in published recordings. A combined reel will follow approval of the individual runs.

Public Adom board: full routing comparison

Watch or download the narrated full comparison. The public Teazzers Solenoid Driver RP2040 v1.1 has 94 footprints and five output channels. The video tours the original human layout, removes all 484 segments and 58 vias from a copy, verifies zero remaining traces/vias, and shows Astra's independently calculated routing appearing through live KiCad IPC edits.

Astra runs in Adom Hydrogen and writes a custom geometry/A* planner. It reads the retained placement, pads, netlist and zone outlines; checks candidate paths against copper, pads, holes and board edges; and uses back copper and vias where needed. No Freerouting or other external autorouter is used, and the original trace geometry is not used to generate the replacement paths. Planning and iterative native DRC happened before this recorded execution. The tour and result play at normal speed; route creation plays at 3x, with the validation wait omitted.

The final saved live board contains 1,463 segments and 33 vias, with zero unconnected items after native KiCad zone refill and DRC. Four pre-existing errors remain: two courtyard overlaps, one zone intersection and one starved thermal. There are no new clearance or crossing errors. The human reference reports three open items and 27 errors under the same KiCad checks; the stripped starting copy reports 118 open items and five errors. This demonstrates connectivity routing on this board. Current capacity, USB signal integrity and production electrical qualification remain engineering review tasks.

kicad_routing_state supplies the live revision and verifies copper counts. kicad_remove_route removes the original copper in one native Undo transaction. Then 132 kicad_route_net calls create the independently calculated segments and vias, guarded by expectedRevision. These calls use validate:false because the whole candidate was already checked; the actual saved live board is checked again using kicad-cli pcb drc --refill-zones through Adom Bridge run_script. desktop_record_window_start / desktop_record_window_stop capture one continuous KiCad-window take. The edited film is derived from that take, with caption timing and an edit manifest retained.

The narrated edition uses Adom TTS’s synthetic Andrew voice. The caption-only edition remains available.

Adom setup

Install the Adom integration with adom-wiki pkg install adom/codex, then open the Codex dock card or run adom-codex serve --print-url.

This package configures Codex for Adom. It does not install or replace the OpenAI Codex executable or your credentials.

• Bootstrap: preparing Codex for Hydrogen
• Dock dashboard, newbie panel and demos

Codex Bridge

Codex Bridge is an optional desktop-app integration, separate from the EDA tooling above.

Control Codex Desktop on a named Windows machine through Adom Bridge. The project's codex-bridge.exe is compiled in Rust and runs under AB's bridge lifecycle, without a Node or Python runtime for the bridge. The live test installation is on arav-rog, so Codex Desktop does not need to be installed on AdomLapper.

• Install, detect, launch, and uninstall the official Windows desktop package.
• Reuse an authorized native Codex sign-in cache without overwriting existing credentials.
• Discover the actual desktop's tools to create, read, and continue conversations.
• Find, inspect, install, and remove plugins through native Codex APIs.
• Discover project, worktree, panel, and scheduling tools, with native approvals intact.
• Inspect jobs, events, and requests; warn the user with an AB toast before a setup step triggers UAC.

Read the illustrated Codex Bridge guide for screenshots, examples, build/deployment instructions, and tested limitations. The bridge ZIP, OpenAI desktop app, and Adom skills/dashboard package are separate installations. adom-wiki pkg install adom/codex does not deploy the bridge or install Codex Desktop. The tested bridge is development-pinned; a public runtime release/update manifest has not been published.

Codex Bridge technical setup and protocol notes.

Optional reload integration

Installing this wiki package enables container-local Codex reload continuity, fixes startup timeouts in restored hidden tabs, and removes the typing-box fade. See installation, extension updates, and uninstall behavior.

Skip the repeated IDE walkthrough

Version 0.1.23 opens new Codex editor tabs directly at the prompt. The default ships through Hydrogen’s existing Codex package dependency; it preserves sign-in and permission prompts. See diagnosis and verification. Already-open walkthrough tabs should be closed and reopened.