# What Wiring Studio is

> Wiring Studio is wire harness design software for schematic layout, pin-to-pin wiring, BOM generation and cut list calculation, in the browser and on the desktop.

Source: https://wiring.studio/docs/

Wiring Studio is a wire harness design application. You lay out the harness, assign pin-to-pin connections, and the bill of materials and cut list are derived from that as you work. It runs in the browser and as a desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux, on one account and one project format.

## What it is

It is built for electrical engineers, harness designers and technicians who need to design cable assemblies, document wiring and produce production paperwork without an enterprise ECAD licence. Wiring Studio starts where schematic capture ends: once you know the connector list, it takes you to a released cutlist.

_Figure: The Wiring Studio project editor showing a harness design with connectors and cables on the canvas_

A **project** holds one or more **sheets**. A sheet holds the parts you place, the cables between them and the wiring inside those cables. Everything downstream — lengths, the BOM, the cutlist, the design rule checks — is derived from that and is never edited directly.

## The four views

Every project has four views, switched from the floating toolbar at the top of the workspace. Each one is a different reading of the same sheet.

- **Design** — the physical harness. Place connectors, ring terminals and branch points, route cables between them, and set lengths, coverings and labels. See [Design View](https://wiring.studio/docs/design-view/).
- **Wiring** — the schematic. Route wires cavity to cavity, group them into named networks, twist pairs and configure shielded cables. See [Wiring View](https://wiring.studio/docs/wiring-view/).
- **BOM** — every part the sheet uses, counted and priced from your own library, with a markup you set. See [BOM and cut list](https://wiring.studio/docs/bom-and-cutlist/).
- **Cutlist** — every wire to cut, with its derived length and your cutting margin applied. See [BOM and cut list](https://wiring.studio/docs/bom-and-cutlist/).

_Figure: The four views side by side — Design, Wiring, BOM and Cut List_

The BOM and the cutlist are outputs, not tables you fill in. They recompute from the sheet as you place parts and assign cavities, so they cannot drift from the drawing the way a spreadsheet does.

## What it does

- **Formboard canvas** — place and route components with pan, zoom and snap-to-connection, and reshape cables with waypoints and tangent handles. See [Design View](https://wiring.studio/docs/design-view/).
- **Pin-level wiring** — assign a wire, contact, seal and colour codes to each cavity, with double crimps and twisted pairs. See [Pin configuration](https://wiring.studio/docs/pin-configuration/).
- **Named networks** — name a connected group of wires once and the name propagates across the whole network, including across sheets. See [Wiring View](https://wiring.studio/docs/wiring-view/).
- **Shielded and multicore cables** — map strands to cavities, terminate the shield, and lay wires out in concentric layers with fillers. See [Cable shielding](https://wiring.studio/docs/cable-shielding/).
- **Connector mates** — pair a connector with its counterpart on another sheet and jump between the two, carrying a traced wire with you. See [Sheets and workspaces](https://wiring.studio/docs/sheets-and-workspaces/).
- **Reusable components** — save a selection or a whole sheet and insert it into any project. See [Reusable components](https://wiring.studio/docs/reusable-components/).
- **Parts library** — 16 categories with manufacturer data, pricing and per-category properties, plus AI help with images and descriptions. See [Parts library](https://wiring.studio/docs/parts-library/).
- **Design rule checks** — 35 checks across nine categories running continuously over the whole project, each one clickable straight to the thing it is about. See [Design rule checks](https://wiring.studio/docs/design-rule-checks/).
- **Excel import** — drop in the spreadsheet you already keep and an agent builds the project from it. See [Excel import](https://wiring.studio/docs/excel-import/).
- **MCP server** — connect Claude, ChatGPT or another MCP client and an AI assistant can read and edit your projects as you. See [MCP server](https://wiring.studio/docs/mcp-server/).
- **PDF export** — one document containing any combination of the five views, across the sheets you choose. See [PDF export](https://wiring.studio/docs/pdf-export/).

## What it does not do

Schematic capture and PCB layout stay in your ECAD tool. Wiring Studio does not do either, and does not import a netlist from one — it starts once the connector list is known.

Cable lengths are values you set on the drawing, not measurements taken from a 3D route. If you need the routed length from a vehicle model, take it from there and enter it here.

## Where to start

If you are new, start with [Getting started](https://wiring.studio/docs/getting-started/) — it takes you from an account to a two-connector harness with a BOM. If you already keep the harness in a spreadsheet, [Excel import](https://wiring.studio/docs/excel-import/) is the faster way in.

The chapters after that cover one area each, in the order you meet them: the two canvases, then pin configuration and the parts library, then the derived outputs and export, then sheets, teams and settings.

_Last updated: 15 September 2026_