A PCB design
MCP server
Cherry Blossom now has an MCP server. Connect Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex or Cursor and your own AI works on your boards with the tools Sakura uses, on every plan, Free included.
What does a PCB design MCP server do?
It lets the AI you already use work on a circuit board directly. MCP, the Model Context Protocol, is how an AI app calls another service’s tools. Ours is named cherryblossom, and its tools are the ones Sakura, our own agent, designs with: build a schematic, wire it, make parts, lay out the board, route it, pour copper, run checks.
The assistant does not hand you a netlist to paste somewhere. It acts on the project itself. Each edit is saved at once and shows live in any editor tab that has the project open, the way a collaborator’s edit would. It is the same project you can share and edit with other people, and it ships with Cherry Blossom v2.
Can I use Claude or ChatGPT for PCB design on the Free plan?
Yes. The MCP server is on every plan. The tools run on Cherry Blossom and the model runs on your own subscription.
The setup guide covers five assistants: Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex and Cursor. Any other app that takes a remote MCP server with OAuth sign-in works the same way. Because the model is yours, the work spends none of your Cherry Blossom AI credits.
The built-in agent is the other route, and managed AI comes with Pro and Ultra. If you are on Free and open Sakura in the editor, the notice now offers both: upgrade to Pro, or connect your own AI, with each assistant linked to its own section of the setup page. See pricing for what each plan includes.
Connecting takes two steps: add the server’s address, then sign in to Cherry Blossom when the assistant asks. There is no API key to make. In Claude Code it is one command, copied from the MCP setup page, which also has the steps for every other assistant.
claude mcp add --transport http cherryblossom https://www.trycherryblossom.com/api/mcpThen run /mcp in Claude Code to sign in.
Which tools does the assistant get?
These are the names your assistant sees. It picks them itself, so you never type one.
Can it find and start a project?
Projects: list_projects, create_project
It lists your projects and the ones shared with you, with your role on each, and creates an empty one with a link that opens it in the editor.
Can it draw the schematic where the wires go?
Schematic by coordinates: get_wiring, draw_wiring, edit_net, arrange_blocks
get_wiring reads the sheet by coordinates: pin ends and the way they face, wires, labels, ports, junctions and block frames. draw_wiring draws wires through points you give it, and refuses the whole call if anything is wrong, so it never joins two named nets by accident. edit_net renames a net and keeps its wires, or sets whether Tidy draws it as a label or a power port. arrange_blocks puts the blocks in rows in one call.
Can it just say which pins connect?
Schematic by connection: add_component, connect, remove_wiring, tidy_schematic
When the route of a wire does not matter, the assistant names pins as REF.PIN and the editor draws the wiring. remove_wiring deletes wiring and never joins nets. tidy_schematic arranges the sheet by signal flow.
Can it set rules and route by hand?
Board rules and hand tools: set_net_class, set_net_width, draw_trace, pcb_text
set_net_class makes a class of nets with its own clearance, trace width and via size, as KiCad's net classes do. draw_trace draws one trace through points on one copper layer, and is refused if it would short, crowd other copper or leave the board. pcb_text puts text on the silkscreen, fab or copper layers.
Can it place, route and pour copper?
Layout, routing and pours: layout_pcb, place_parts, route_pcb, set_pour, run_checks, look
It places parts, autoroutes the open connections, adds or removes a copper pour for a net, and runs the checks. look draws a picture of the schematic or board off screen and returns the numbers behind it (overlaps, parts off the board, unrouted connections), so the assistant can see what it did. The 3D board comes back as numbers only.
The schematic tools exist because assistants kept hitting the same gap: they could say which pins connect, but not where a wire should run. get_wiring and draw_wiring close it. Long answers are capped to stay under Claude Code’s output limits, and the tool falls back to reading by block, by reference or by area.
Net classes, hand tracing and board text came from feedback on the first version. So did a few routing fixes: pours have their own thermal gap, through-hole pads join a fill by their copper rather than just their centre, and the autorouter necks a wide trace down where a pad is narrower than the trace. A replaced part keeps its wiring on each pin by pin number.
What should I know before an AI edits my project?
It edits the real project, so a few behaviors are worth knowing first.
The assistant’s edits are not on your undo stack. To go back, open the project’s version history, described in the sharing docs.
While it places or routes the board, or tidies the whole schematic, anyone with the project open sees that an AI assistant is at work, and nobody can start one of those until it is done.
Sign-in is OAuth. The assistant’s token is accepted only for project reads and edits, the board lease, part lookups and a per-user call limit. Each call also gets its own registries for parts, land patterns, shapes and zone fills, so projects do not affect each other on a shared server. To disconnect, remove Cherry Blossom from your assistant’s connectors.
A model can still get a circuit wrong. Ask the assistant to run run_checks, or open the Checks panel yourself, before you export anything.
To see the tools at work without connecting anything, describe a board in the editor and watch Sakura use them.
Questions
It is a service that gives an AI assistant tools for working on circuit boards, using MCP (the Model Context Protocol), the open standard AI apps use to call outside tools. Cherry Blossom's server is named cherryblossom. Once an assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT is connected, it can list your projects, build and wire a schematic, make parts from supplier data, lay out and route the board, pour copper and run checks, using the same tools as Cherry Blossom's own agent, Sakura. The edits save to your project and show up live in any editor tab that has it open.
Yes. Cherry Blossom's setup guide covers Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex and Cursor, and any other app that accepts a remote MCP server with OAuth sign-in. You add the server's address to the assistant, sign in to Cherry Blossom when it asks, and then describe the board in the assistant's own chat. The model is the one on your own subscription, so the work does not spend Cherry Blossom AI credits. The steps for each assistant are on the MCP docs page.
Yes. The server is available on every plan, Free included. The tools run on Cherry Blossom and the model runs on your own AI subscription. Tool calls have a limit of their own, the same on every plan, and part lookups count against your account's lookups as they do in the editor. When a Free user opens Sakura in the editor, the notice offers two paths: upgrade to Pro, or connect your own AI over MCP.
Whatever Sakura can do in a project the assistant can edit: create projects, add and replace parts, draw and edit schematic wiring, rename nets, set net classes and trace widths, place parts, autoroute, draw traces by hand, add copper pours and run checks. It works only on your own projects and the ones shared with you to edit. It does not get your account: the assistant's token is accepted only for project reads and edits, the board lease, part lookups and the per-user call limit.
Not with the editor's undo. Edits from a connected assistant are not on your undo stack, so to go back you open the project's version history, which the sharing docs describe. While the assistant places or routes the board, or tidies the whole schematic, it holds the project the way Sakura does: anyone with the project open sees that an AI assistant is at work, and cannot start one of those operations until it finishes.
Sign-in uses OAuth, so there is no API key to create or paste, and you can disconnect at any time by removing Cherry Blossom from the assistant's connectors. On the server, each MCP call gets its own part, land-pattern, shape and zone-fill registries, so one user's project cannot change what another user's call draws, routes or checks. The assistant still edits your real project, so treat it like adding an editor to a shared board, and check its work with the Checks panel before you export.
Bring your own AI to your board.
Add the server in Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex or Cursor, sign in, and describe the board. The steps are on the MCP docs page.
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