Getting Started

klayout-mcp runs as a stdio MCP server. The default launch shape is:

command: uvx
args:    klayout-mcp@latest

If your client cannot use uvx, install the tool once and launch klayout-mcp directly.

Required Environment

For batch DRC, the klayout executable must be on PATH or exposed through KLAYOUT_BIN.

export KLAYOUT_BIN=/Applications/klayout.app/Contents/MacOS/klayout

Quick Smoke Test

After your MCP host starts the server, run this order:

1. open_layout
2. list_layers
3. query_region
4. render_view
5. close_session

That is enough to validate session handling, geometry inspection, and artifact generation.

Runtime Configuration

Variable	Purpose	Default
KLAYOUT_MCP_ARTIFACT_ROOT	Root directory for runtime artifacts	<repo>/.artifacts
KLAYOUT_MCP_SESSION_TTL_SECONDS	Session inactivity timeout	3600
KLAYOUT_BIN	KLayout batch executable for DRC	klayout

Behavior:

• any absolute local path can be used for layouts and DRC scripts
• artifact paths returned by tools are absolute
• sessions expire lazily after inactivity
• close_session removes the session artifact directory