1.0.0-beta.12 Public Beta

Twelfth public beta.

New Import Component (Symbol + Footprint) Command

• File ▸ Import ▸ Component… takes a folder, scans it, and offers a ranked list of what it
  can read. One cell comes out — symbol, footprint and the pin-to-pad map that joins them, so a symbol
  pin and the layout pad at that index are the same terminal. Density variants become layout views;
  named thermal pads survive.
• Nine formats read: .kicad_sym, .kicad_mod, .lib, .lbr, the .p/.d/.c
  triple, .hkp, .PLX/.DSL, .cxf and .scr.
• A part instance is numbered from the prefix its library states — U1, not X1.
• Pin names from an imported symbol are drawn, with a per-instance override on the context menu, and
  a name sits on the edge its pin sits on rather than straddling its own lead.
• Scanning a large folder shows progress and can be cancelled, and says when it stopped early
  instead of reporting a short list that looks like a small folder.

Improved Command Line + MCP Server Support

• Every verb answers --json. One JSON document on stdout and nothing else — results, the
  loadpull table, refusals and diagnostics included. A failed run still emits a document, so a caller
  never has to tell "no output" apart from "output I could not parse".
• Create a correct document headlessly. circuitrf new workspace <dir>, new cell <ws> <name> and
  import part <file> --into <dir>. Each calls the same code the New Workspace / New Cell / Import
  Component dialogs call, and every default is the default those dialogs open on — so what you get
  headlessly is what you would have got by clicking.
• circuitrf check <path> — is it well formed, does it resolve, is it sound? Runs no analysis and
  writes nothing, so it is safe after every edit, on a read-only tree, and on a workspace you have open
  in the app. Point it at a workspace, a cell folder or one file. Every finding comes from a validator
  the application itself uses, so a design that passes here is not refused when you open it.
• circuitrf explain <path> — what did circuitRF decide? Which technology, which layout, which
  analysis chain and for which verb, what an expression evaluates to in the design's own scope
  (--expr), and where a relative reference lands (--ref). It reports the walk as well as the
  answer, since resolution here is a series of walk-ups. A sweep is reported in base SI with its unit
  and its scale.
• circuitrf read <path> hands back a .npy, a Touchstone file or one of circuitRF's own documents
  as JSON.
• circuitrf reference serves the reference pages plus a catalogue of every netlist primitive with
  its terminals and its parameters — generated from the running build, never transcribed, so it cannot
  drift from what the engine actually accepts.
• circuitrf serve --root <dir> speaks a protocol over stdin/stdout so an external client can reach
  those verbs directly, confined to one directory. It calls the same verbs a shell does; nothing is
  reachable there that is not reachable from your terminal.
• Run verbs now refuse an option they do not read. lp x.cnl --maxmix 3 used to answer
  File not found: 3 — the dropped flag's value became the input path — and dc x.cnl --set Vg=1 ran
  silently without the override, answering a different question than the one asked.

Borrowing a cell from another project

• Referencing a cell brings in just that cell, not the entire workspace. It opens, places and
  drags like any other cell, marked with the network glyph and with its own filter toggle.
• Removing a reference really removes it, and a reference that breaks can be put back:
  Re-reference Cell… on a broken instance searches the likely places first, and one undo entry
  repairs every instance carrying that reference.
• A technology disagreement is a dialog with buttons, not prose: use theirs for this layout, for the
  whole workspace, or copy the cell in. A workspace with no technology adopts theirs with no clicks.
  Only the layers the referenced cell actually occupies are compared, so two projects sharing a metal
  stack are no longer refused over documentation layers.
• Dropping a large referenced cell no longer freezes the window — about a minute on a real library
  cell, now 32 ms — and the Add Cell dialog opens immediately rather than after the scan.
• A broken instance is findable at board extents. Its placeholder was under a pixel on a 100 mm
  board; thousands of them also went from 382 ms a frame to 15 ms.

Vias, layout and schematic editing

• Blind and buried vias export as blind and buried vias. Every writer took the pad's copper and the
  opposite outer copper, so a blind via left circuitRF as a hole drilled clean through the board,
  silently. Vias drawn in the editor also exported with no annular ring, or flashed their pad into the
  drill file.
• A blind via imports as a blind via — and an imported board's vias resolve a span at all, through
  vias included. A via stating no layer pair takes the outermost copper, which is what it means.
• The Via tool refuses a layer no via entry claims, instead of placing a via that draws perfectly and
  is inert in DRC, in EM and in every export.
• A port dragged to another face of a pad names the face it landed on — and stays clickable where it
  now is. Rotate was never at fault; the port was never being selected.
• Right-clicking empty schematic canvas offers Pop Out; there was no context menu there at all.
• Design ▸ Place Cell Instance… (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+I) places a cell in a schematic or a layout, and the
  picker lists referenced cells too. View now sits beside Window on the menu bar.
• A symbol drawn after the cell editor was open can be made primary without restarting.

Workspaces, files and updates

• A workspace opens with its panels already in place, instead of snapping into position at the very
  end of a long open.
• The empty document area shows the Welcome icon rather than No documents open.
• Save Workspace As copies the workspace folder — cells, technologies and documents — and switches
  this window to the copy. It was an ordinary file picker writing a single file nothing looks for.
• A model file placed in an unsaved schematic stays found. Thirty seconds in, the first autosave
  silently re-based every relative reference on the recovery folder, so a SPICE model, a Touchstone file
  or a cell reference resolved into a directory nothing had been pointed at and that is deleted on exit.
• After an automatic update on macOS, workspaces under ~/Documents open. They were refused with the
  protected-folder message until you quit and launched again; the update handed over in a way that left
  the system's permission grant naming the bundle it had just replaced.
• Closing an undocked document's last tab closes its window.
• Release notes cover the versions you skipped. Updates only ever offer the newest release, so a
  machine left off while two went out never saw the middle one's notes.

Documentation

• Every component's terminal order is documented, with a note wherever the order matters — the dot
  convention on coupled inductors, a taper's two widths, the direction an I() measurement is signed
  against. A third of the library was showing net 1 is terminal 1, which is a placeholder, not a fact.