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KiCad 10 Variants

The variant_* tools build effective BOM variants from the active schematic and, on KiCad 10 style projects, store their state in the active .kicad_pro under the variants section.

Tools

  • variant_list() lists the known variants plus the default and active selections.
  • variant_create(name, base_variant=None) creates a new variant or clones an existing one.
  • variant_set_active(name) switches the active variant.
  • variant_set_component_override(...) writes per-component enabled/value/footprint overrides.
  • variant_diff_bom(a, b) returns a JSON BOM diff between two variants.
  • variant_export_bom(variant, format="csv") writes a variant-specific BOM under output/variants/.
  • Active variants are forwarded to compatible kicad-cli export commands through --variant.
  • export_manufacturing_package(variant="name") exports a gated manufacturing package for a specific variant without changing the active variant saved in the project.

Notes

When no valid .kicad_pro file is available, the tools fall back to the historical .kicad-mcp/variants.json sidecar so older or fixture-style environments still work safely.