name: hydrogen-eda-discovery description: > The onboarding playbook a (second, background) Claude conversation runs after Hydrogen setup to discover which EDA / electronics-design tools the user runs — KiCad, Fusion 360, Altium, OrCAD/Cadence — and onboard them into the AI-first electronics workflow. If KiCad/Fusion (we have bridges): remember their preferred tool in a prefs file, offer to open example files, and pitch the gerber-export → order-at-JLCPCB/PCBWay/OSHPark loop. If Altium/OrCAD (no bridge yet): pitch co-building a bridge with the AI and publishing it to the Adom wiki for the community (KiCad/Fusion bridges are the reference). READ + RUN this when a new thread is asked to "explore what EDA software I use" / on the post-setup discovery pass. Trigger words — eda discovery, what eda software, what cad do i use, electronics design tools, detect kicad, detect fusion, detect altium, detect orcad, onboard eda, pcb workflow, order pcb, gerbers, jlcpcb, pcbway, oshpark, write a bridge, altium bridge, orcad bridge, publish to adom wiki, ai-first electronics, who am i and what can i do, post-setup explore.

EDA tool discovery & onboarding (run in the background after setup)

You're (likely) a second Claude conversation launched after Hydrogen setup to quietly figure out the user's electronics-design stack and show them what the AI-first Adom workflow unlocks. Be exploratory and opt-in — detect first, then offer; never auto-install or auto-build. Do the detection in the background, then come back with a short, friendly summary + one clear offer.

1. Detect (via adom-bridge-cli — see hydrogen-adom-desktop, hydrogen-bridges, pup)

adom-bridge-cli status                       # relay up? caps include kicad / fusion360?
adom-bridge-cli kicad_list_versions '{}'     # KiCad installed (+ which versions)
adom-bridge-cli fusion_status '{}'           # Fusion 360 installed? ("installed but not running" = yes)

The KiCad/Fusion bridges work the same on every platform. For tools with no bridge (Altium, OrCAD, Cadence/Allegro, EAGLE, DipTrace, Eplan, ...), there's no bridge verb — detect them by install path / running process using adom-bridge-cli run_script. The exact probe (install directories, process listing) is platform-specific — see your platform bootstrap's EDA companion skill (hydrogen-eda-discovery-windows on Windows; hydrogen-eda-install in the mac bootstrap) for the ready-to-run probe.

(Whatever the platform: treat empty output as a timeout, not a negative result.)

2. Branch on what you found

A) KiCad and/or Fusion 360 found — we have bridges, go deep (opt-in)

  1. Remember it. Write a small prefs file so future threads skip re-detection:
    mkdir -p ~/.adom
    cat > ~/.adom/eda-prefs.json <<'JSON'
    {"primary":"kicad","versions":["10.0"],"fusion":true,"detectedAt":"<date>",
     "notes":"user runs KiCad v10; Fusion installed (read-only/expired)"}
    JSON
    
    (Also worth a one-line memory note if you keep memories.)
  2. Show, don't tell — offer to open an example so they see it work: "Want me to open a sample board in KiCad and pop the 3D viewer so you can see what I can drive?" → use the pic_programmer demo flow (hydrogen-self-screenshot/adom-bridge-cli-kicad): open .kicad_sch + .kicad_pcb, symbol/footprint editors, then the board 3D viewer (close the footprint+symbol editors first — kicad_open_3d_viewer attaches to the active editor otherwise).
  3. Pitch the loop that AI makes effortless — "From here I can export gerbers and help you order the board — JLCPCB, PCBWay, or OSHPark." If they're keen, that's the on-ramp to (4).
  4. The real unlock — build the glue, publish it. Most fab vendors have no clean API, so the value is AI-built automation: pull from KiCad → stage in the workspace → drive the vendor's upload flow (pup) → order. Offer to vibe-code an uploader/automation app for their fab of choice and publish it to the Adom wiki so the whole community gets it. This is exactly what the wiki is for (see §3).

B) Altium / OrCAD / Allegro / EAGLE / other — no bridge yet (the community pitch)

We don't have a bridge for these — but that's an opportunity, not a dead end. Offer:

"You're on Altium — we don't have an Adom bridge for it yet, but we have a wiki for sharing apps with the whole community, and we could build one together right now. The KiCad and Fusion 360 bridges are great references for the AI to model the design on — it's probably ~30 minutes of vibe-coding. Then we publish it to the Adom wiki so every Altium user gets it. We could all use it. Want to?"

  • Reference bridges: adom-inc/adom-bridge-cli/plugins/kicad/ and …/plugins/fusion360/ (a Python bridge that the desktop app dispatches to; see adom-bridge-cli-kicad/-fusion for the verb shape). A new bridge = the same pattern (launch app, open files, screenshot, send keys, an optional in-process add-in for the richer API).
  • Publish flow: the Adom wiki hosts shared apps (apps/<name>) — see the wiki publish skills.

C) Nothing detected / unsure

Ask what they design boards in, and whether they'd like a bridge or workflow built. Keep it one friendly question, not an interrogation.

3. The frame (why this matters — say it briefly, don't lecture)

The electronics industry is moving AI-first, and the tools mostly aren't built for it yet. Adom is where that comes together: you build an AI-first app (a bridge, an uploader, a fab-automation glue), publish it to the Adom wiki, and the whole community can install and improve it. KiCad/Fusion bridges, a JLCPCB/PCBWay/OSHPark uploader, an Altium bridge — each one makes the next person's AI-first workflow turnkey. The user isn't just configuring their setup; they can contribute the missing piece in half an hour.

4. Etiquette

  • Opt-in always. Detect silently; offer the demo/build — don't open apps or write code unprompted. One clear offer beats five questions.
  • Don't overpromise vendor APIs. JLCPCB/PCBWay/OSHPark uploads are mostly UI automation (pup), not clean APIs — frame the uploader as AI-driven glue, and verify pages exist before templating URLs (pup skill).
  • Respect read-only states (e.g. an expired Fusion subscription is view/query-only).
  • Report back to the user concisely: what you found, one thing you can show them now, and one thing worth building.
  • hydrogen-adom-desktop / hydrogen-bridges — the adom-bridge-cli relay + KiCad/Fusion bridge verbs (in-workspace names; the adom-bridge-cli-* skills are the cloud-side equivalents)
  • hydrogen-eda-discovery-windows / hydrogen-eda-install (mac) — the per-platform no-bridge install-path + process probes
  • pup — driving fab-vendor upload pages; hydrogen-open-url — opening vendor sites
  • the Adom wiki publish skills — sharing the bridge/app you build with the community