Workaround: "KiCAD IPC socket path not configured"

[BR-Tavares]

"KiCAD IPC socket path not configured"
Quick diagnostic & setup guide — Konnect (KiCad ↔ MCP)
When this error appears
Any Konnect tool that needs to talk to KiCad live (save_project, live PCB editing, check_kicad_ui, etc.) returns:

KiCAD IPC socket path not configured. Either launch this plugin from KiCAD
(sets KICAD_API_SOCKET), or set the ipc_socket_path in settings.
— even with KiCad open and the API enabled.

Correct path, step by step
1 → Open KiCad normally.

2 → Go to Edit → Preferences → Plugins (IPC API section) and check "Enable KiCad API". Confirm a line like this appears:

Listening on ipc://C:\Users<your_user>\AppData\Local\Temp\kicad\api.sock
👉 Copy that whole address (starting with ipc://) — it is unique to this machine/user.

3 → In KiCad, open Tools → External Plugins (or the plugin toolbar icon) and click the Konnect icon. This opens the plugin's settings dialog.

⚠️ Known UI bug: this window may open smaller than intended, cutting the Save/OK button off-screen (a Windows DPI/scaling issue). If you can't see the button:

Try resizing the window by dragging its bottom edge, or
Use Tab to cycle through fields until the button is focused (even if not visible), then press Enter or Space to confirm.
4 → Paste the address from step 2 into the IPC socket path field. Save.

5 → Confirm your AI client (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, etc.) has the konnect MCP server registered in its own MCP config (project .mcp.json, or claude_desktop_config.json), pointing to the konnect.exe binary and the plugin's settings.json. This registration is separate and does not happen automatically just from configuring the plugin inside KiCad.

6 → Restart the AI client session (close and reopen Claude Code / Claude Desktop) so it spawns a fresh Konnect process that reads the newly saved ipc_socket_path.

7 → Verify: have the AI call open_project (or equivalent). Expected result:

{ "kicad_ui_running": true, "message": "KiCAD is running and IPC is available." }
One-sentence summary
There are two separate configurations that both need to be correct at the same time: (a) the ipc_socket_path saved in the plugin's settings.json inside KiCad, and (b) the konnect server registration in the AI client's own MCP config. Neither happens automatically on its own — and KiCad's settings dialog has a visual bug that can hide the save button.