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EngineHall

Formerly PCBA Studio · a Newmatik product

Where hardware gets built, checked and released, together.

EngineHall is the shared workspace of a hardware development project, for your team and your development partner: open points, meetings, decisions, documentation, design reviews and releases. It works with the tools the design is made in, KiCad, Altium Designer, Autodesk Fusion and STM32CubeMX, and checks the design on every push, with evidence you can verify.

Start a projectInstall the engineSee pricing

Design files stay in your Git repository. The engine runs on your machine or in CI and uploads only reports.

DEMO · Controller boardAn example project

  • DEMO-A-12Confirm the debug connector pinout

    Action · owner: hardware lead · due Friday

    In progress

  • DEMO-D-3Four-layer stack-up

    ADR · agreed by both organisations

    Agreed

  • DEMO-V-4Schematic, revision B

    3 anchored comments · 2 reviewers

    Changes requested

  • mainCheck run on commit 3f2a1c9

    0 errors · 2 warnings · coverage listed

    Published

  • DEMO-L-1Release 1.0

    Checklist 7 of 9 · 1 of 2 approvals

    Blocked

Project management

What a project agrees, decides and still has to do, in one place both organisations can see.

Open points
Actions, questions and risks, each with an owner, a due date and a status: open, in progress, done. Filter by owner, organisation or overdue, and flag the ones that block a release.
Meetings
Minutes and the items agreed in them, linked to the open points and decisions they produce. Each participant confirms the minutes or comments on them.
Decisions
Proposed, agreed or superseded, with who agreed for which organisation. An architecture decision record keeps its text once agreed; a change is a new decision that supersedes it.
Task tracking and email
The overview counts what is open, overdue and blocking, per owner and per organisation. A daily digest and an email for every new assignment keep people current.

Documentation

The project's documentation lives next to its open points, not in a folder of exported files.

Versioned pages
Markdown pages with an append-only revision history. Any revision can be compared with the one before.
Diagrams
Mermaid diagrams render in the page, next to tables and code.
Internal or shared
Each page is internal to your organisation or shared with the whole project, like every other item.
Frozen with each release
A release keeps the revision of every page its audience can read. Generated pages, such as the MCU pin map and the check report, are written from the latest check run.

Design work in the tools you use

EngineHall does not replace your ECAD or CAD tool. It reads their files, checks them, and gives an AI agent planned, verified ways to work in them.

Connected Git repositories

Connect GitHub or GitLab repositories to a project. Browse branches, commits and diffs, and open files in the browser: KiCad schematics and boards, Altium SchDoc sheets, PDFs, STEP models and source code. Design files are not copied into EngineHall; cached answers expire after an hour.

Reviews and checks

People review the design; the engine checks what the files can prove. Both land in the same project.

Design reviews
Open a review on a revision and invite reviewers. Comments anchor to a point on a schematic sheet, a spot in a PDF or drawing, a point on a 3D model or a line of code. Each reviewer approves or requests changes.
Check runs on every push
enginehall review --publish in your CI job, on the pushes and pull requests you choose, sends the report to the project: findings, locations and coverage, never the design files. Newmatik projects can use the GitHub Action, which lives in a private repository.
Schematic, CubeMX and firmware
The cross-domain rules find a signal that the schematic routes to one pin while CubeMX or the firmware use another, on Altium and KiCad schematics.
KiCad schematic, parts and board
KiCad's ERC and DRC through kicad-cli, connectivity checks ERC does not make, component and project requirements, the Newmatik house DFM values and ngspice testbenches.

Every finding carries its evidence

A finding names the file, the exact location, and the lines that contradict each other, then says what breaks on the board and what to change. This one comes from the reference board. A clean result counts only together with its coverage: every rule says whether it passed, failed or could not run, and why.

Errorcross_domain.pin.mismatch

Reference_Board.SchDoc U1 PA2

The schematic routes USART2_TX to PA2, resolved from wire geometry. The MCU configuration assigns USART2_TX to PA14.

Quoted evidence

  • PA2 (package pin 12) carries net 'PA3_USART2_TX'Reference_Board.SchDoc
  • PA14.Signal = USART2_TXReference_Board.ioc
Consequence
The board is fabricated from the schematic, so the signal will be on PA2. Firmware configured for PA14 will drive the wrong pad and the interface will not work on assembled hardware.
Recommended action
Decide which pin is intended. If the schematic is right, move USART2_TX to PA2 in CubeMX and regenerate. If the config is right, the schematic needs an ECO before layout.

Releases

A release is the point where both sides say the design is ready for fabrication. EngineHall makes it a record instead of an email thread.

  1. Step 1

    Checklist

    Each release starts from the project's checklist template.

  2. Step 2

    Blockers

    Open points flagged as blockers, open review comments, unticked checklist items and the latest check run are listed before anyone approves.

  3. Step 3

    Approvals

    By default one approval from every organisation in the project, or the minimum each organisation sets.

  4. Step 4

    Frozen documentation

    The release keeps the revision of every documentation page its audience can read.

  5. Step 5

    Release package

    A ZIP with the release notes, the frozen pages, the check report as JSON and SARIF, the approvals and a manifest of the commits.

  6. Step 6

    Handover to Gerbtrace

    Pass the package on to Gerbtrace, which takes the fabrication files from there, through a download link that expires after an hour.

Working together

  • A project has an owner organisation, the workspace that pays, and partner organisations: your customer, your development partner, a supplier. Partners join free as guests.
  • Every member belongs to one organisation in the project and has one role: lead, engineer, reviewer or viewer.
  • Every item is internal to its organisation or shared with the whole project. Row-level security in the database enforces it.
  • Invite people by email, and start a project from a template with pages, open points and a release checklist in English or German.
  • Workspace data is stored in the EU (Frankfurt). Design files stay in your Git repository: the engine runs on your machine or in your CI and uploads only reports.

Agents

AI agents work with EngineHall through MCP, with the permissions of the person who connects them.

Hosted MCP for project data
enginehall.com/mcp reads projects, open points, decisions, pages, reviews, check runs and releases. Its write tools draft or change items; each returns a preview and writes nothing without confirm: true. Sharing, agreeing, approving and inviting stay with people: the tool returns a link instead.
Local MCP for the engine
enginehall mcp runs the review on the design files on your machine. They never pass through enginehall.com.
Skills for KiCad, Altium and Fusion
The kicad-designer skill, enginehall altium mcp with the altium-designer skill, and the fusion360-cad skill over Autodesk's Fusion MCP server.

All MCP servers

Where the product stops

  • Gerber, ODB++, Excellon, BOM, pick-and-place, and panel data belong to Gerbtrace.
  • Component price, stock, and lifecycle belong to Elexess.
  • Flashing a device and writing option bytes stay with ST's programmer.
  • Altium boards are checked by Altium's own design-rule check; EngineHall supplies the house rules and checks fiducials. KiCad boards get KiCad's DRC through kicad-cli and the house DFM rules in the review.
  • Impedance and creepage are not calculated. They stay with your ECAD tool's rules and your engineers.
  • EngineHall reports evidence for a person to review. It does not certify a board and it does not sign off a release.

Start a project

Projects start on the Team plan, and partner organisations join free as guests. The engine, the VS Code extension and the browser review are free.

Start a projectInstall the engine