The editor

Libraries

Rivet PCB ships the KiCad symbol and footprint libraries and indexes them at startup, so search is instant rather than a scan across thousands of files every time you open a chooser.

What's indexed

22,744 symbols across 221 symbol libraries, and 15,124 footprints across 155 footprint libraries — the same .kicad_sym and .kicad_mod/.pretty files KiCad itself ships. The index records, per entry, the library it lives in and enough of its shape — pin count for a symbol, pad count for a footprint — to tell parts apart in a results list without opening each one.

Searching by hand

The Symbol Chooser (A on the schematic) and the footprint chooser (A on the board) both search the index by name, value or keyword, and both can be narrowed to a single library. The Symbol Library Browser is a standalone tab for the same index when you want to browse rather than place.

The Symbol Library Browser: a search field reading 'regulator', a category selector, a count of how many symbols matched, and a grid of symbol previews drawn from the library.
The Symbol Library Browser — the same index, laid out for looking rather than for placing.
The Choose Footprint dialog searched for 0805, listing seventeen matching footprints out of 15,124 with the count shown under the search field.
The same index on the board side — seventeen of 15,124 footprints matched "0805".

Searching through the agent

The agent has the same search as two of its read-only tools — search_symbols and search_footprints — plus list_symbol_libraries and list_footprint_libraries, which return every installed library with its part count, and find_datasheet / read_datasheet, which locate a manufacturer datasheet for a part number and return its pinout, limits and layout notes with a page number attached to each. More on what the agent does with a found part is on the agent page.

Custom parts

The Symbol Editor and the Footprint Editor open any installed part or a blank one and save back to a real .kicad_sym or .kicad_mod file — the exact format the bundled libraries use, so a part you save shows up in the chooser exactly like a library one, and can be opened in KiCad or any other tool that reads the format.

The Symbol Editor is shown on the Schematic page, where it is opened from. It writes real .kicad_sym, so a symbol you draw here opens in KiCad or anything else that reads the format.