kicad-snapshot 0.2.0

Snapshot and visual diff tool for KiCad projects

KiCad Snapshot

KiCad project snapshot and visual diff tool (PySide6 GUI).

• Repository: https://github.com/tanakamasayuki/kicad-snapshot
• PyPI package name: kicad-snapshot
• CLI command: kicad_snapshot
• Japanese README: README.ja.md

Features

• Create manual ZIP snapshots of KiCad projects
• Compare snapshots against current project state
• Compare snapshot-to-snapshot
• Render schematic/PCB visual diffs
• PCB layer-level comparison
• Multi-language UI (English, Japanese, Chinese, French, German)

Requirements

• Python 3.11+
• kicad-cli available on your machine
• KiCad 8+ recommended

Installation

From PyPI (recommended)

pip install kicad-snapshot

Or with pipx:

pipx install kicad-snapshot

From source

git clone https://github.com/tanakamasayuki/kicad-snapshot.git
cd kicad-snapshot
pip install .

Usage

Run from an installed environment:

kicad_snapshot

If running from source with uv:

uv sync --dev
uv run kicad_snapshot

Basic Workflow

1. Start app and confirm kicad-cli path.
2. Select a KiCad project (.kicad_pro).
3. Open Snapshot screen and choose compare targets.
4. Open Compare screen and review item-by-item diffs.

Configuration

Settings are stored per user via platformdirs.

• Windows: %APPDATA%/KiCadSnapshot/settings.toml
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/KiCadSnapshot/settings.toml
• Linux: ~/.config/KiCadSnapshot/settings.toml

Development

uv sync --dev
uv run kicad_snapshot

Entry point:

[project.scripts]
kicad_snapshot = "kicad_snapshot.__main__:main"

Release Automation (GitHub Actions)

Use workflow: .github/workflows/release.yml

• Trigger: workflow_dispatch
• Inputs:
  • version (e.g. 0.0.1)
  • publish_pypi (true/false)

Automated steps:

1. Update versions in pyproject.toml and src/kicad_snapshot/__init__.py
2. Update CHANGELOG.md by creating a new section after ## Unreleased
3. Commit + tag (vX.Y.Z)
4. Build Windows EXE (PyInstaller, onedir)
5. Create ZIP + SHA256 and attach to GitHub Release
6. (Optional) Publish package to PyPI

For PyPI publish, configure PyPI Trusted Publishing for this GitHub repository.

Documents

• SPEC.md / SPEC.ja.md: product specification
• DEV_SPEC.md / DEV_SPEC.ja.md: development environment specification

License

MIT (see LICENSE)