Known limitations

Use these boundaries when planning a Second Silicon workflow.

Imports and design surfaces

Project import is folder-based. The current New Project flow accepts KiCad and Altium project folders. Standalone netlists, images, PDFs, individual .kicad_pro files, ZIP archives, and loose Altium documents are not selectable in that flow.

Altium requires a project root. Select a folder with one .PrjPcb file and its related documents. Standalone .SchDoc and .PcbDoc files are not accepted.

Mixed-format folders are rejected. A selected folder cannot contain both KiCad and Altium project markers.

Capabilities vary by board. A parse can produce a rendered schematic without complete component, net, or semantic hit-target data. Second Silicon records capabilities per board and uses the best available surface.

Editing

KiCad editing is conditional. Design mode appears only for a KiCad board that reports native editing support and has a usable native scene.

Altium is not source-editable. Highlights, comments, probe markers, and other annotations remain overlays. Second Silicon does not write Altium source files.

Hardware and local tools

Browser-local operations require Symbiote. The app returns an unavailable state when Symbiote is disconnected or the required capability is missing.

The documented scope integration is PicoScope 2204A. Other scopes are not part of the current supported hardware contract. Measurements can still be entered manually.

Apple Silicon scope capture may require Rosetta. The PicoScope 2204A driver path uses an x86_64 sidecar.

Threads and exports

Messages cannot be edited or deleted after sending. Threads can be renamed, reordered, archived, searched, and downloaded.

Thread PDF export is text-focused. It includes the completed timeline and project context, not rendered schematic pages, waveform graphics, or an agent-written report summary.

Generated board reports are unavailable. The current report-generation and report-download routes return an unavailable response.

Collaboration and AI

There is no real-time co-editing. Refresh to pick up teammate changes that are not already reflected in the current view.

The agent can be wrong. Verify critical design decisions and measurements independently. Long threads can also exceed the selected model’s useful context; start a focused new thread when earlier details stop influencing answers.

Local Claude Code and Codex plans are not available in the current Symbiote release. Use a configured API provider model instead.

Platforms

There is no Symbiote build for Linux, iOS, or Android.