Analog Canvas

Analog Canvas is a local-first, connectivity-aware schematic editor for the web. Draw and organize hierarchical circuits, import structural SPICE, export deterministic SPICE/Spectre netlists and vector SVG/PDF, publish selected work to the Community Gallery, and connect authorized Agents through the same typed edit model.

Browse the Gallery · Open the editor · Windows preview (ZIP) · Documentation · GitHub repository

Highlights

• Connectivity-aware editing: place devices, route wires, distinguish Crossings from Junctions, label Nets, and make undoable multi-object edits deriving physical networks from completed wire edits while keeping logical labels and unrouted import intent explicit.
• Reusable hierarchy: author each schematic as a Cell, define independent Cell Pins, place reusable hierarchical blocks, and navigate between callers and child Cells.
• Projects and interchange: save a private Cloud Project, import/export canonical .icproj.json, import structural .cir, .sp, .spi, and .scs files, and export deterministic structural SPICE or Spectre. The hosted editor also provides saved simulation source folders and a fixed ngspice/SKY130 environment for qualified OP, DC, AC, TRAN, and Noise runs.
• Publication-ready output: the web editor's SVG and PDF exports remain vector graphics; PNG is rendered at 3× raster scale.
• Community publishing: signed-in users can publish selected circuits with server-rendered previews, tags, likes, moderation, and bounded version history. Publishing is deliberate and is not a backup mechanism.
• Agent integration: the typed Snapshot and transaction API is available through a version-pinned stdio MCP adapter, an HTTP Agent Kit, and the published OpenAPI contract. See the Agent integration guide.

Project ownership and privacy

An explicit File / Save updates one private Cloud Project in place. Local .icproj.json files are portable import/export and backup artifacts; browser recovery is an origin-local crash-safety copy. Neither is confused with formal Cloud Save, and Community Gallery entries remain separate public publications. Shelf cards offer Version history for the latest three earlier saves: compare component changes, restore with conflict protection, or create an independent private branch. Restoring a draft never updates its Gallery publication. Refreshing the editor restores that browser window’s open project tabs, including unsaved circuit content, the active tab, and view positions. This browser-local workspace does not replace Cloud Save or portable file backups; undo stacks and unfinished text-field edits are not restored. Hosted topology checks run against the clicked snapshot in a private background task. Refreshing or closing the page does not cancel it; reopen the editor to view progress/results. Results remain available for seven days. Comparisons use bounded search and explicitly mark incomplete coverage; the best 20 results are retained within an 8 MiB result budget. Vite without the hosted backend shows a local-only fallback that requires keeping its page open. The hosted service keeps its visitor reporting first-party and honors browser Do Not Track instead of embedding a third-party analytics tracker.

Check and Save runs ERC and visual checks on demand, displays findings in Issues and the canvas, and saves through that same Cloud Project service. Findings do not block saving; editing invalidates the last check without automatically rerunning it. File / Save and Ctrl+S remain save-only.

Start here

• Use the hosted product: browse the Community Gallery or start a new circuit.
• Try the Windows desktop preview: download and run the preview.
• Learn the editor: Getting started, schematic hierarchy, compatibility, and troubleshooting.
• Understand the product: current architecture and documentation map.
• Develop or contribute: development workflow, Agent entry, original skills and setup, current development reading set, and test system.

For Claude Code, run pnpm setup:skills once in each checkout or worktree before starting a session. Choose slash commands from the shared workflow stage entries. Both clients use the same checked-in original skills; setup and conflict recovery describe how the local registration works.

Windows desktop preview

Download Windows x64 ZIP · Release details

1. Download and extract the whole ZIP.
2. Open the extracted Analog-Canvas-Windows-x64 directory and run Analog Canvas Preview.exe. Keep its sibling resources together; the .exe alone will not work. No Node.js, pnpm or developer tools are required.
3. Draw a new project and press Ctrl+S. It saves automatically in %USERPROFILE%\Analog Canvas\Projects. Local projects offers search, filters and New above a compact list. Click a project name to open it; use its star for favorites and More for rename, independent copies, history and recoverable deletion. Folder and external-file settings are collapsed.
4. File → Open Project… opens .icproj.json or .icproj in place; Save writes back to that file. Save As… creates an independent project and switches to it after success. Export Project File… makes a portable copy without changing the Save destination or marking edits saved.
5. Each tab keeps its own file. Locations are shortened in the interface, with full paths on hover and Show in folder. Restart restores tabs and recovery; external changes are checked before writing. Closing offers to save all changed tabs, commits the latest workspace before exit, and stays open if saving or workspace persistence fails.
6. User Components supports local circuit and artwork definitions through the shared authoring editor. Create, edit, import/export, remove and restore definitions without an account. The library persists separately in %APPDATA%\Analog Canvas\components.json; placed project instances retain their captured version when the library changes.
7. About, on the right, shows data locations and offers opt-in Windows .icproj association. TokenZhang, repository and source links open in the system browser when clicked. Upgrading to a new extracted ZIP preserves stable user data; the previous preview's settings and recovery can be imported without changing originals.

This is an unsigned, offline preview with no installer or automatic updates. It shares the Web editor's drawing model and exports SVG/PNG/PDF and SPICE/Spectre files. Account, Cloud, Gallery, Agent and simulation services are unavailable. Local history keeps three prior saves; recovery remains a safety copy. See the full instructions and limitations.

The linked package passed real Windows EXE acceptance, offline request checks and credential/private-file scanning. It includes corresponding source, attribution, ACCEPTANCE.json and SECURITY.json tied to the same source commit. See the security audit and its limitations.

This ZIP is 155.2 MiB (about 343.5 MiB extracted). Most is Electron's Chromium/runtime, retaining English and Simplified/Traditional Chinese resources. The rest is the editor, desktop host, corresponding source, licenses and acceptance records. It contains no developer node_modules or user projects. Keep the bundled runtime and resources together.

Run locally

Requires Node.js 24 or newer and pnpm 11.16.0 or newer.

pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
pnpm build
pnpm dev

Run pnpm build once after installing, and again after pulling package changes: the development server's Vite configuration loads some workspace packages from their built dist/ output.

Open the displayed loopback URL and choose Editor, or open its /editor route directly. Create a circuit from the component palette, or import one .cir, .sp, .spi, or .scs entry together with its local include files.

Click Agent to open a connection message, then copy it into your Agent chat. The development server starts the local Agent relay on first use; no separate Worker command or cloud account is needed. Keep the editor open while the Agent works. Sessions expire after 30 minutes without Agent operations or manual edits; continued activity renews them. Stopping the development server also ends local sessions; after restarting it, create a new connection. Cloud account, Gallery, and hosted simulation services are not started by this local relay.

Development follows the original-skill workflow: confirm requirements, implement and review, then deliver through a pull request and verify Production. Explicit local-only and branch-trial scopes stop at their requested boundary. See validation timing and delivery cadence.

What the repository contains

• apps/editor/: React/SVG editor plus the Gallery, account, moderation, and project surfaces.
• apps/editor/analytics/: the complete first-party analytics module: page, styles, browser reporting, HTTP routes, map data, and Durable Object backend.
• apps/local-host/: loopback-only production host for the installable PWA.
• apps/mcp-server/: packaged stdio MCP adapter for authorized Agent sessions.
• packages/model/, packages/project-protocol/, and packages/edit-engine/: current persisted circuit model, bounded file compatibility, and atomic mutation boundary.
• packages/derived/: read-only connectivity, diagnostic, and geometry projections over the persisted model.
• packages/components/: one canonical JSON file per built-in component, containing its symbol, electrical rules and catalog metadata; runtime packages consume generated projections.
• packages/spice/, packages/devices/, packages/symbols/, and packages/netlist/: structural SPICE import, built-in device facts, symbol semantics, and deterministic design-netlist export.
• packages/exporters/ and packages/render-svg/: formal SVG, PNG, and PDF output.
• packages/math-typesetting/: bounded LaTeX formula typesetting for rich-text annotations.
• packages/simulation-service/ and packages/spice-run/: shared simulation preparation, run lifecycle, and artifacts, plus simulator request and result contracts.
• packages/agent-adapter/, packages/agent-client/, and packages/agent-routing/: shared Agent contract, client, and routing logic.
• worker/: Cloudflare Worker host and Durable Objects for static hosting, Gallery, accounts, Cloud Projects, simulation, and Agent relay sessions.
• containers/: simulator images, gateways, and operator-host topologies for ngspice and the historically named VACASK candidate used by Production.
• netlists/: one circuit per directory for the SPICE import corpus, simulation examples and qualification, and Agent layout evaluation.
• fixtures/: Project, SPICE, rawfile, export, Agent API, and visual-reference test inputs and goldens.
• scripts/ and : build, generation, validation-gate, release, and deployment tooling, with the gate catalog and pinned MCP and VACASK declarations.

The Razavi reference manifest is the sole visual authority. Every non-documentation merge to main deploys to Production; release tags and explicit dispatches may redeploy a commit that is already on main. See deployment for the release and recovery contract.

Netlist conversion

POST /api/netlist/convert accepts { "text": "...", "source": "spice", "target": "spectre" } and returns translated text or line-specific diagnostics. The Worker and local Vite server expose the same pure converter; SCS import uses it locally too. No Python daemon, simulator or account is required. The structural subset adapts netlist-crawler under its MIT license. See the conversion contract for supported syntax and the attribution.

License

Copyright © 2026 Zengchun Chen and Zhishuai Zhang.

Except where otherwise noted, Analog Canvas is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 only (AGPL-3.0-only). Modified versions that are distributed or made available for remote network interaction must provide their Corresponding Source under the same license. Third-party dependencies, reference material, and assets retain their respective copyright and license terms.

Citation

If you use Analog Canvas in research, teaching, or another publication, cite:

Zengchun Chen and Zhishuai Zhang. Analog Canvas. 2026. Available at: https://analog-canvas.tokenzhang.com/ Source code: https://github.com/cascode-ai/analog-canvas

@software{chen2026analogcanvas,
  author = {Chen, Zengchun and Zhang, Zhishuai},
  title = {Analog Canvas},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://analog-canvas.tokenzhang.com/},
  note = {Source code: https://github.com/cascode-ai/analog-canvas}
}