Altium MCP工具

Installation

Prebuilt binaries for Linux (x86_64), macOS (aarch64) and Windows (x86_64) are on the Releases page — each archive bundles a setup README plus docs/CLIENT_SETUP.md, which wires the server into every MCP client we know of.

Claude Desktop users need no archive at all: install the one-click extension altium-designer-mcp.mcpb from the same page (older builds: the identical altium-designer-mcp.dxt) via Settings → Extensions → Advanced settings → Install Extension… — see CLIENT_SETUP.md § Claude Desktop.

In a container — for a Linux box, a NAS or a CI job that generates libraries into a mounted folder (Altium itself never needs to be inside): the repository's Dockerfile produces the same --locked release build as the published binaries.

docker build -t altium-designer-mcp .
docker run -i --rm -v /path/to/libraries:/libraries altium-designer-mcp

The mounted /libraries folder is the container's whole allow-list. In a client's configuration that is "command": "docker" with "args": ["run", "-i", "--rm", "-v", "/path/to/libraries:/libraries", "altium-designer-mcp"].

To build from source instead, see CONTRIBUTING.md § Development Setup; an optimised binary comes from cargo build --release and lands at target/release/altium-designer-mcp.

Quick Start

Client Setup — verified configuration for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Google Antigravity, Cursor, VS Code, GitHub Copilot CLI, Windsurf, Cline, Roo Code, Kiro, JetBrains, Zed, Gemini CLI, Codex CLI, Continue, Goose, OpenCode and any other stdio MCP client, plus troubleshooting — on Windows, Linux, and macOS. Using the server — what to ask for once it is connected: example workflows, prompts and tips, identical for every client.

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Command-Line Usage

altium-designer-mcp [OPTIONS] [CONFIG_FILE]

Sample Files

Altium-authored sample libraries are committed under scripts/samples/ as golden fixtures: the reader tests (tests/samples_pcblib.rs, tests/samples_schlib.rs) parse them in CI as ground truth. The PowerShell/DelphiScript tooling that (re)generates them needs a real Altium installation and is manual-only.

See scripts/README.md for details on the sample files and the on-site tooling.

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Configuration

The server reads one JSON file — or none: altium-designer-mcp --allow <DIR> grants folders on the command line and runs on defaults for everything else, which is how the Claude Desktop extension starts it. Configuration file location:

• Linux/macOS: ~/.altium-designer-mcp/config.json
• Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.altium-designer-mcp\config.json

{
    "allowed_paths": [
        "/path/to/your/altium/libraries",
        "/another/library/path"
    ],
    "logging": {
        "level": "warn"
    }
}

Configuration Options

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Manage components

STEP Model Integration

STEP models are attached, not generated. The tool links existing STEP files to footprints.

{
    "step_model": {
        "filepath": "./3d-models/0603.step",
        "x_offset": 0,
        "y_offset": 0,
        "z_offset": 0,
        "rotation": 0
    }
}

Long Component Names

Component names longer than 31 characters are supported. The OLE Compound File format limits storage names to 31 characters, so longer names are automatically truncated internally while the full name is preserved in component parameters. This is handled transparently — you can use any length component name and it will be preserved on read/write roundtrips.

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Compare

Embedded vs External Models

Altium supports two ways to reference 3D models:

When copying or merging components between libraries:

- Embedded models travel with the component — copy_component_cross_library and merge_libraries both copy the referenced model streams into the target (a model shared by several footprints is copied once), so the bodies still resolve after the move. - External model references: copy_component_cross_library removes them with a warning by default, since a path relative to the source library rarely resolves elsewhere — pass preserve_external_paths=true to keep them. merge_libraries carries them unchanged.

Embedding a model in the source library is the reliable way to keep 3D data through any copy.