Quickstart

This is a quick guide that explains how to get an editable version of this project up and running.

We are asuming Ubuntu 24.04, but Debian Sid also works.

First, to install the dependencies:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3-full python3-dev python3-pip git libegl1 \
     libegl1-mesa-dev libmpfr-dev libgmp-dev libboost-dev kicad

Next, clone the repository and install it using pip:

Caution

If you want to set up a virtual environment, you need to pass –system-site-packages, as otherwise the KiCad Python API won’t be available.

pip3 install --user --editable .[test,bench] -v

This will install padne executable in your ~/.local/bin directory.

The test suite

The test suite uses pytest and can be run with the following command:

python3 -m pytest

The documentation

The documentation is built using Sphinx and can be built with the following command:

make -C docs html  # or use `make -C docs devserver` if you want a live rebuild server

Github Actions

The repository contains a variety of Github Actions that serve to run the test suite, build the documentation, PyInstaller binary and validate the benchmark suite.

You can run these actions locally using the act tool. For example, to run the test action:

act -W .github/workflows/run-tests.yaml \
   --matrix kicad-version:10.0 -j build_and_test \
   -P ubuntu-24.04=catthehacker/ubuntu:act-24.04 \
   --bind