Have agents write a PCB autorouter when existing ones give up
Building a home robot, a hobbyist vibe-coded an 8-layer board but every autorouter failed; FreeRouting left 350 connections unrouted after 4 hours. He asked Fable and GPT-6 Astra to write a router, had a working draft the next day and kept agents improving it 24/7.
Source
@ser_alexeev on X · 2026-10-21
Written in our own words. Credit to the original author. Link checked 2026-10-22.
What they did
Building a home robot, a hobbyist vibe-coded an 8-layer board but every autorouter failed; FreeRouting left 350 connections unrouted after 4 hours. He asked Fable and GPT-6 Astra to write a router, had a working draft the next day and kept agents improving it 24/7.
Result (as claimed)
The router grew into pcbkit, a project to turn an agent request into a wired, checked circuit board.
Tools they used
Cost: Claude Fable 5.1: from $10 in / $50 out per 1M tokens; GPT-6 Astra: from $10 in / $50 out per 1M tokens.
Set it up
Gather your sources
Collect the papers, notes, links or files you want to work from in one place.
Load them into the tool
Open Claude Fable 5.1, GPT-6 Astra, KiCad, AWS, FreeRouting and add your sources. Keep the original files so you can check claims later.
Ask focused questions
Ask for summaries, comparisons or connections with citations to the source passages.
Verify and save
Spot check claims against the sources, then save the output as notes you can reuse.
Copy the full setup prompt
Paste into your agent and it will walk you through the setup, asking before anything that sends, posts or spends.
You are helping me set up this AI use case end to end in Claude Code. Goal: Have agents write a PCB autorouter when existing ones give up What the original author did: Building a home robot, a hobbyist vibe-coded an 8-layer board but every autorouter failed; FreeRouting left 350 connections unrouted after 4 hours. He asked Fable and GPT-6 Astra to write a router, had a working draft the next day and kept agents improving it 24/7. Reported result (as claimed by the author): The router grew into pcbkit, a project to turn an agent request into a wired, checked circuit board. Source: https://x.com/ser_alexeev/status/2113018796483178515 Tools they used: Claude Fable 5.1, GPT-6 Astra, KiCad, AWS, FreeRouting Category: Research & learning Please: 1. Ask me 3 short questions about my situation (accounts I have, budget, what I want the output to look like). 2. Propose a step-by-step plan using these tools or cheaper alternatives, with the time and cost of each step. Use official pricing pages; say "check pricing" if unsure. 3. Then do the setup with me one step at a time, waiting for my OK before anything that sends messages, posts publicly, spends money or deletes data. 4. Finish with a checklist to run it again next time.
You are helping me set up this AI use case end to end in Codex. Goal: Have agents write a PCB autorouter when existing ones give up What the original author did: Building a home robot, a hobbyist vibe-coded an 8-layer board but every autorouter failed; FreeRouting left 350 connections unrouted after 4 hours. He asked Fable and GPT-6 Astra to write a router, had a working draft the next day and kept agents improving it 24/7. Reported result (as claimed by the author): The router grew into pcbkit, a project to turn an agent request into a wired, checked circuit board. Source: https://x.com/ser_alexeev/status/2113018796483178515 Tools they used: Claude Fable 5.1, GPT-6 Astra, KiCad, AWS, FreeRouting Category: Research & learning Please: 1. Ask me 3 short questions about my situation (accounts I have, budget, what I want the output to look like). 2. Propose a step-by-step plan using these tools or cheaper alternatives, with the time and cost of each step. Use official pricing pages; say "check pricing" if unsure. 3. Then do the setup with me one step at a time, waiting for my OK before anything that sends messages, posts publicly, spends money or deletes data. 4. Finish with a checklist to run it again next time.
You are helping me set up this AI use case end to end in Grok Bot. Goal: Have agents write a PCB autorouter when existing ones give up What the original author did: Building a home robot, a hobbyist vibe-coded an 8-layer board but every autorouter failed; FreeRouting left 350 connections unrouted after 4 hours. He asked Fable and GPT-6 Astra to write a router, had a working draft the next day and kept agents improving it 24/7. Reported result (as claimed by the author): The router grew into pcbkit, a project to turn an agent request into a wired, checked circuit board. Source: https://x.com/ser_alexeev/status/2113018796483178515 Tools they used: Claude Fable 5.1, GPT-6 Astra, KiCad, AWS, FreeRouting Category: Research & learning Please: 1. Ask me 3 short questions about my situation (accounts I have, budget, what I want the output to look like). 2. Propose a step-by-step plan using these tools or cheaper alternatives, with the time and cost of each step. Use official pricing pages; say "check pricing" if unsure. 3. Then do the setup with me one step at a time, waiting for my OK before anything that sends messages, posts publicly, spends money or deletes data. 4. Finish with a checklist to run it again next time.
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Guides for this use case
How to design a PCB and electronics with AI · How to build hardware projects with AI agents · How to run multiple coding agents together · How to vibe code an app with Claude Code
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