Install

What is actually published today

Being blunt about this, because the alternative is you going to the Releases page and not finding what you expected:

Platform	Status
macOS, Apple Silicon	✅ Published, signed and notarized (v0.1.1)
macOS, Intel	❌ Not published. Build from source.
Windows	❌ Not published. Build from source.
Linux	❌ Not published. Build from source.

Windows and Linux are real, working CI targets — the daemon and frontend test suites run on all three platforms on every pull request — they simply are not attached to a published release yet. If you need one, open an issue so the demand is visible.

macOS (Apple Silicon)

1. Download the .dmg ending in _aarch64.dmg from Releases.
2. Open it and drag Hardware Agent Studio into /Applications.
3. Launch it. It should open normally.

Not sure which Mac you have? Apple menu → About This Mac. Anything with an M-series chip is Apple Silicon; if you bought it in 2020 or later it almost certainly is.

The build is signed and notarized under a real GittieLabs, LLC Apple Developer identity, so there should be no Gatekeeper warning. If you get one, that is a bug worth reporting.

If you are on v0.1.0

That release was deliberately unsigned. macOS will refuse a normal double-click. Right-click (or Control-click) the app and choose Open, then Open again in the dialog — macOS remembers the choice. If instead you get “is damaged and can’t be opened”, run this once and retry:

xattr -cr /Applications/Hardware\ Agent\ Studio.app

Better: just download v0.1.1.

Build from source

Needed for Intel macOS, Windows and Linux until releases exist.

You will need Rust, Node.js 18 or newer, and uv.

git clone https://github.com/GittieLabs/hardware-agent-studio.git
cd hardware-agent-studio

# Python daemon
cd services/python-daemon
uv venv && uv pip install -r requirements.txt
cd ../..

# Frontend
cd apps/tauri-ui
npm install
cd ../..

# Run it
cd core/tauri-rust
npx @tauri-apps/cli@2 dev

Windows and Linux are genuinely untested here

The app builds and launches on both. What has never been verified by anyone is whether the live CAD integration works there — finding your KiCad install, connecting to its IPC server, locating kicad-cli, driving FreeCAD headlessly. Path resolution on those platforms is the least-exercised code in the project. Expect rough edges, and please tell us what you hit — including if it all just worked, which is equally useful.

What you need alongside it

Neither is bundled. Both are separate programs you install yourself.

KiCad 9 or newer — required for anything involving a real board: footprint library search, injecting a footprint, ERC and DRC, reading a board outline. Version 9 is the floor because that is where KiCad’s IPC API became stable.

You also need KiCad’s IPC server switched on, which it is not by default: Preferences → Plugins → Enable KiCad API. Without it the app can see KiCad is installed but cannot talk to it.

FreeCAD 0.20 or newer — required only for generating enclosures. Everything else works without it.

You can explore the app, search for parts, read design guidance and manage your library with neither installed. Features that need a tool you do not have report that clearly rather than failing strangely.

An AI provider

The app has no model of its own and no bundled key. Pick a provider in Settings and supply your own key, which is stored in your operating system’s keychain — never in a config file on disk.

Supported: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Perplexity, and Ollama for a fully local model. Ollama is the option to choose if you would rather nothing left your machine at all; see Privacy and your data for exactly what is sent under each.

First run →