Skip to content

KiCad: Add .history folder to template#4841

Open
DeflateAwning wants to merge 1 commit intogithub:mainfrom
DeflateAwning:deflateawning-kicad-v9-history
Open

KiCad: Add .history folder to template#4841
DeflateAwning wants to merge 1 commit intogithub:mainfrom
DeflateAwning:deflateawning-kicad-v9-history

Conversation

@DeflateAwning
Copy link
Copy Markdown

Reasons for making this change

As of KiCad v9, a new .history/ folder is added in the KiCad project's project folder. It contains a local git repo that automatically gets committed to on every file save, storing a local history of file changes. It's a very neat feature, but it causes git to malfunction a bit (and mostly causes a lot of git warnings) until it's properly ignored (or setup as a submodule - though that's not the recommended approach).

Links to documentation supporting these rule changes

The following snippet is from project_dir/.history/README.txt, which explains the way this works.

KiCad Local History Directory
=============================

This directory contains automatic snapshots of your project files.
KiCad periodically saves copies of your work here, allowing you to
recover from accidental changes or data loss.

You can browse and restore previous versions through KiCad's
File > Local History menu.

To disable this feature:
  Preferences > Common > Project Backup > Enable automatic backups

This directory can be safely deleted if you no longer need the
history, but doing so will permanently remove all saved snapshots.

Here is an example of the folder structure that gets created with .history, as of KiCad v10.

tree -L 3 -a
.
├── fabrication-toolkit-options.json
├── fp-lib-table
├── .history
│   ├── .git
│   │   ├── config
│   │   ├── description
│   │   ├── HEAD
│   │   ├── hooks
│   │   ├── index
│   │   ├── info
│   │   ├── logs
│   │   ├── objects
│   │   └── refs
│   ├── .gitignore
│   ├── jtag_hs3_blaster_pcb.kicad_pcb
│   ├── jtag_hs3_blaster_pcb.kicad_sch
│   └── README.txt
├── jtag_hs3_blaster_pcb-backups
│   ├── jtag_hs3_blaster_pcb-2026-04-11_213603.zip
│   ├── jtag_hs3_blaster_pcb-2026-04-11_213625.zip
│   └── jtag_hs3_blaster_pcb-2026-04-11_213817.zip
│   └── ...
├── jtag_hs3_blaster_pcb.kicad_pcb
├── jtag_hs3_blaster_pcb.kicad_prl
├── jtag_hs3_blaster_pcb.kicad_pro
├── jtag_hs3_blaster_pcb.kicad_sch

Merge and Approval Steps

  • Confirm that you've read the contribution guidelines and ensured your PR aligns
  • Ensure CI is passing
  • Get a review and Approval from one of the maintainers

@DeflateAwning DeflateAwning requested a review from a team as a code owner April 12, 2026 05:40
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

1 participant