[Question] Kicad Jobset command

[EFeru]

Hi @bennymeg,

Thanks for this awesome tool. As you might know, Kicad 9.0 has introduced Jobset to automate our workflow:
https://docs.kicad.org/9.0/en/kicad/kicad.html#jobsets

What would be the command to trigger this plugin? What I have tried below does not seem to work:

Thanks for your help.

[bennymeg]

I have not got a chance to play with v9 yet.
I assume the solution would be using the plugin cli function to generate the production files.
Try using the KICAD9_3RD_PARTY variable to invoke the plugin.
Probably something like python3 -m ${KICAD9_3RD_PARTY}\plugins\com_github_bennymeg_JLC-Plugin-for-KiCad\cli.py -p /myProject/myBoard.kicad_pcb

[EFeru]

Thank you for your quick answer. Unfortunately it does not work. I try also running the command below in a command prompt window which gave the following error. I am not sure what am I missing because in the Kicad GUI the Toolkit works flawesly.

C:\Users\eferu\Documents\KiCad\9.0\3rdparty\plugins>python -m com_github_bennymeg_JLC-Plugin-for-KiCad.cli -h
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<frozen runpy>", line 198, in _run_module_as_main
  File "<frozen runpy>", line 88, in _run_code
  File "C:\Users\eferu\Documents\KiCad\9.0\3rdparty\plugins\com_github_bennymeg_JLC-Plugin-for-KiCad\cli.py", line 3, in <module>
    from .thread import ProcessThread
  File "C:\Users\eferu\Documents\KiCad\9.0\3rdparty\plugins\com_github_bennymeg_JLC-Plugin-for-KiCad\thread.py", line 2, in <module>
    import wx
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'wx'

Only python is recognized on my Windows machine, python3 not even though I have Python 3.13.3 installed.

[bennymeg]

'pip3 install wx' should do the trick, it is a requirement for the GUI.

[EFeru]

pip3 install wx was not recognized in Windows, so I installed pip install wxPython

After that I get:

C:\Users\eferu\Documents\KiCad\9.0\3rdparty\plugins>python -m com_github_bennymeg_JLC-Plugin-for-KiCad.cli -h
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<frozen runpy>", line 198, in _run_module_as_main
  File "<frozen runpy>", line 88, in _run_code
  File "C:\Users\eferu\Documents\KiCad\9.0\3rdparty\plugins\com_github_bennymeg_JLC-Plugin-for-KiCad\cli.py", line 3, in <module>
    from .thread import ProcessThread
  File "C:\Users\eferu\Documents\KiCad\9.0\3rdparty\plugins\com_github_bennymeg_JLC-Plugin-for-KiCad\thread.py", line 3, in <module>
    import pcbnew  # type: ignore
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'pcbnew'

Trying

C:\Users\eferu\Documents\KiCad\9.0\3rdparty\plugins>pip install pcbnew
ERROR: Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement pcbnew (from versions: none)
ERROR: No matching distribution found for pcbnew

ChatGPT says:
"
pcbnew is not an installable package on PyPI — it's a built-in module provided by KiCad for scripting and plugins, especially in KiCad’s own Python environment.
To use pcbnew in your scripts, you must use the Python interpreter that comes with KiCad. This environment has pcbnew and other internal modules preloaded.
"

I propose to put this on hold for now, and when you have time you can give a try to https://docs.kicad.org/9.0/en/kicad/kicad.html#jobsets
The advantage of jobset with the Frabrication-Toolkit will be that we can create releases with only one click (otherwise it will require some manual folder management).

[bennymeg]

I assume this will only work with KiCad's distributed version of python only.
It would take some time until I will upgrade, I'm in the middle of couple of projects currently.
Could you try: C:\Program Files\KiCad\9.0\bin\python -m ${KICAD9_3RD_PARTY}\plugins\com_github_bennymeg_JLC-Plugin-for-KiCad\cli.py -p /myProject/myBoard.kicad_pcb
You can define C:\Program Files\KiCad\9.0\bin as KICAD9_BIN_DIR in KiCad's paths to improve readability later if that works.
let me know how its go's.

[neilenns]

I've spent some time messing around with this today, albeit using the plugin on Linux via WSL. I had to add the plugin folder to the PYTHONPATH environment variable:

export PYTHONPATH=/root/.local/share/kicad/9.0/3rdparty/plugins

Once I did that I was able to run the plugin like this from a command line:

python3 -m com_github_bennymeg_JLC-Plugin-for-KiCad.cli -p "myproject.kicad_pcb"

I didn't have luck running this via the jobset stuff though. One thing that jumped out is it doesn't seem like there's a way to specify the output folder with this plugin. It always seems to be production, and to work well with jobsets there needs to be a way to specify the output folder path.

[neilenns]

I spent a bunch more time mucking about with this, now on Windows, and am no closer to getting it working :(

I was able to install wx by doing the following:

& "C:\Program Files\KiCad\9.0\bin\python.exe" -m pip install wxPython

However I can't find any combination of command line and environment variable that will successfully run the script as a module.

If I set PYTHONPATH in my environment then my python install will run the script fine but fails because there's no module named pcb new:

python -m com_github_bennymeg_JLC-Plugin-for-KiCad.cli

If I try and run it using the KiCad python I can't get past the problem of it not being treated as a module:

 $env:PYTHONPATH = "D:\OneDrive\Documents\KiCad\9.0\3rdparty\plugins"
& "C:\Program Files\KiCad\9.0\bin\python.exe" -m com_github_bennymeg_JLC-Plugin-for-KiCad.cli
C:\Program Files\KiCad\9.0\bin\python.exe: Error while finding module specification for 'com_github_bennymeg_JLC-Plugin-for-KiCad.cli' (ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'com_github_bennymeg_JLC-Plugin-for-KiCad')

Using the command suggested back on June 9th inside the jobset configuration doesn't work either:

C:\Program Files\KiCad\9.0\bin\python -m D:\OneDrive\Documents\KiCad\9.0\3rdparty\plugins\com_github_bennymeg_JLC-Plugin-for-KiCad\cli -p myBoard.kicad_pcb


C:\Program Files\KiCad\9.0\bin\python.exe: Error while finding module specification for 'D:\\OneDrive\\Documents\\KiCad\\9.0\\3rdparty\\\\plugins\\com_github_bennymeg_JLC-Plugin-for-KiCad\\cli.py' (ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'D:\\OneDrive\\Documents\\KiCad\\9'). Try using 'D:\OneDrive\Documents\KiCad\9.0\3rdparty\\plugins\com_github_bennymeg_JLC-Plugin-for-KiCad\cli' instead of 'D:\OneDrive\Documents\KiCad\9.0\3rdparty\\plugins\com_github_bennymeg_JLC-Plugin-for-KiCad\cli.py' as the module name.

(using cli instead of cli.py doesn't work either)

On Linux I can run the script fine via the jobset, but pcbnew.LoadBoard() always returns None.

[radoslav06]

I'm no expert, but maybe try to run as a normal script (not a module)? I currently don't have this plugin installed, but I use the following command for the iBom plugin, you can adopt:

python "${KICAD9_3RD_PARTY}\plugins\org_openscopeproject_InteractiveHtmlBom\generate_interactive_bom.py" "${PROJECTNAME}.kicad_pcb" --extra-fields "ManufacturerPN,LCSC,kicad_dnp" --extra-data-file "${PROJECTNAME}.kicad_pcb" --no-browser --name-format "${PROJECTNAME}" --dest-dir ${JOBSET_OUTPUT_WORK_PATH}