Find or make a footprint

A part and its footprint are separate objects, because that is how KiCad models them and how reality works — SOIC-8 is one land pattern shared by hundreds of unrelated parts. So finding a footprint is its own step, and you can skip it: a part with pins and a datasheet is useful before any footprint exists.

Three sources, ranked

Your installed KiCad libraries — everything configured on your machine, including the ~150 that ship inside KiCad itself. This is the first place to look and usually the last. Requires KiCad installed and its API enabled.

Your own saved library — anything you previously saved or generated. Results from both sources are merged and tagged so you can see which is which.

Curated community libraries — SparkFun and Espressif, searched through GitHub’s API. Optional, and you can supply your own GitHub token in Settings if you hit rate limits. Imported files are stored verbatim rather than re-derived, so what you keep is what they published.

Attribution

SparkFun’s libraries are CC-BY-4.0, which requires attribution if you publish a design using them. See Attribution and licences.

Generating one

If nothing fits, the app can build a footprint from the package dimensions in your part’s own datasheet — which extraction already captured, so no extra API call is needed.

It fails closed for any package it does not recognise, rather than guessing geometry. That is intentional: a plausible-looking wrong footprint costs a board spin.

Generated footprints are unverified

A generated footprint is marked verified: false in your library, and that flag means what it says: nobody has checked it against a real part. Open it in KiCad’s footprint editor and check the pad pitch, pad size and courtyard against the datasheet’s mechanical drawing before you commit it to a board.

Symbols

Symbols are generated from the extracted pins, laid out on KiCad’s own 2.54 mm grid, and exported to a real .kicad_sym library you can add to KiCad.

Parts with the same package and pin count converge on one shared symbol rather than duplicating.

Getting it onto a board

With a board open in KiCad and its API enabled, the app can inject a footprint directly. It shows you exactly what it will write and does nothing until you click Confirm. The write is a real KiCad transaction — it commits fully or rolls back.

Injecting a symbol into a live schematic is not possible yet; KiCad’s API does not support schematic documents. Export to a .kicad_sym library and add it in KiCad instead.