A Makefile for KiCad 7.0 -> projects. It leverages the new kicad-cli command included in 7.0 -> to generate output data for distribution and production. Designed to be used locally and in CI/CD pipelines. With the addition of ERC/DRC checks in KiCad 8.0, it can be used to pass/fail builds based on these checks.

Usage

1. Clone this repository somewhere and define an environment variable KICADMK_DIR to the folder: export KICADMK_DIR=/home/me/kicad-makefile
2. Copy the example Makefile 'Makefile.example' to the KiCad project to build: cp Makefile.example /home/me/my_project/Makefile
3. Edit the example Makefile referring to comments as a guide.
4. Run make to run default target that builds output, a merged sch and pcb .pdf and a distribution and production .zip:

• ./output/my_project.pdf: merged pdf with sch pages and pcb copper layers.
• ./output/dist/my_project.zip: sch renders, pcb renders, bom, gerbers, pos and drill files.
• ./output/prod/my_project-prod.zip: bom, gerbers, pos and drill files.

Refer to 'Kicad.mk' for other targets.

The project is fairly stable at this point consider that the kicad-cli command is at an early stage; things might change!

Container

A target to build a docker container is available make image. One can then run make within the KiCad project folder with:

docker run --rm -v "$(pwd)":/project kicad-makefile:latest make

The project also publish a package:

docker pull ghcr.io/tuna-f1sh/kicad-makefile:latest

The image uses the latest major KiCad release. For previous releases:

• 7.0 [tag v1.0]: ghcr.io/tuna-f1sh/kicad-makefile:v1.0

Integration with CI/CD

See my entree project as an example of how to use this to build outputs for release etc.

Use the environment variable EXIT_CODE_VIOLATIONS=1 to fail the build on ERC/DRC violations. The rules are checked as part of the sch and pcb targets. To just check rules with exit code, use EXIT_CODE_VIOLATIONS=1 make rules Alternatively, the to the SCH_ERC_FLAGS and PCB_DRC_FLAGS --exit-code-violations

Extra Setup

These steps are optional and can be skipped if the defaults are acceptable.

Note

BOM_CMD is required for KiCad < 8.0 as it does not include a BOM generation tool. KiCad 8.0+ includes a BOM generation tool, but it is not as feature rich as KiBOM.

• BOM_CMD: KiBOM: requires install either with pip or path to repository - see Makefile.example and './bin/kibom'. Can be defined with BOM_CMD and BOM_CMD_FLAGS. Note that by default, the KiBOM script appends to target output so will be re-built whenever BOM_FILE is a prerequisite. One can fix this by supplying a 'bom.ini' with output_file_name = %O.

Useful Variables

Defaults shown, can be set in Makefile or environment. Refer to Makefile.example for others.

# Main output folder for generated files
OUTPUT_FOLDER ?= $(PROJECT_ROOT)/output

# Dist sub-folders
DIST_FOLDER ?= $(OUTPUT_FOLDER)/dist
PROD_FOLDER ?= $(OUTPUT_FOLDER)/prod