buildwithtrace-converter 0.1.0

Trace EDA converter: .trace_sch/.trace_pcb <-> KiCad s-expression, plus the trace_parser. Single source of truth for the CLI, backend, and desktop.

buildwithtrace-converter

The Trace EDA converter, extracted into a single installable package so the CLI, backend, and desktop app stop carrying their own copies.

It converts between Trace's intermediate .trace_sch / .trace_pcb format and KiCad's native .kicad_sch / .kicad_pcb s-expression format (both directions), and exposes the trace_parser used to read the intermediate format.

• Package (PyPI/dist) name: buildwithtrace-converter
• Import root: buildwithtrace_converter (a self-contained top-level — deliberately NOT a buildwithtrace.* namespace, to avoid colliding with the CLI's buildwithtrace package and the backend's vendored buildwithtrace.altium)
• GitHub: buildwithtrace/converter (org, canonical) / elcruzo/trace-converter (personal)

Install

# core (pure stdlib, no deps)
pip install buildwithtrace-converter

# with the optional vector-search helper (numpy / onnxruntime / tokenizers)
pip install "buildwithtrace-converter[vectorsearch]"

Pre-publish (private), install from git or a local checkout:

pip install "buildwithtrace-converter @ git+https://github.com/buildwithtrace/converter@main"
pip install -e ../converter   # local dev

Usage

from buildwithtrace_converter.eeschema.trace_parser import parse_trace_sch
from buildwithtrace_converter.eeschema.trace_json_to_sexp import trace_json_to_sexp
from buildwithtrace_converter.eeschema.sexp_to_trace_json import sexp_to_trace_json
from buildwithtrace_converter.pcbnew.trace_parser import parse_trace_pcb

The unified file CLI (used by the desktop via subprocess):

python -m buildwithtrace_converter.eeschema.trace IN OUT -f trace_sch -t kicad_sch
python -m buildwithtrace_converter.pcbnew.trace  IN OUT -f trace_pcb -t kicad_pcb

Notes

• Core is pure-stdlib (no runtime dependencies). Only common/local_vector_search.py needs the [vectorsearch] extra, and the embedding model + tokenizer are NOT bundled — pass their paths in.

• Source of truth. Edit here. Consumers (trace-cli, backend, and later the Trace desktop) depend on this package; do not re-fork the sources.

• Drift is enforced. scripts/verify_sync.py diffs every shared converter source against the bundled copies and exits non-zero on drift. Run it locally after editing (it defaults to the sibling trace-cli + Trace/trace bundles):

  python3 scripts/verify_sync.py
  

  It is also a CI gate: the converter-sync job in trace-cli/.github/workflows/ci.yml clones this repo and checks the CLI bundle on every PR.

• License: see LICENSE (proprietary — distribute via a private index or git, not public PyPI).