Using GitHub for Hardware Development

(Source: GitHub)

In the world of embedded systems and hardware development, collaboration, version control, and traceability are critical—yet often overlooked—components of the engineering process. Software developers have long embraced Git and platforms like GitHub^® to manage codebases efficiently. However, the power of GitHub extends well beyond code repositories. Today, hardware engineers, printed circuit board (PCB) designers, and embedded systems developers are leveraging GitHub to manage schematics, PCB layouts, firmware, documentation, and even manufacturing files.

In this blog, we explore how GitHub can become a central hub for hardware design workflows, enabling better collaboration, reproducibility, and project transparency.

Why GitHub for Hardware Development?

Traditionally, hardware development has suffered from fragmented file management practices, with schematics in one location, PCB layouts on a local drive, firmware in another repository—if versioned at all—and documentation residing on various cloud services or internal networks.

By unifying these under a Git-based system like GitHub, teams can version control everything—not just code, but also schematics, bills of materials (BOMs), Gerber files, and design reviews. Developers can collaborate across teams, sharing designs with firmware, mechanical, and test engineers in one place. This approach improves traceability by tracking who changed what and when, with detailed commit histories that provide a clear record of changes. It also enables continuous integration and automation, as it can automatically build firmware or generate documentation whenever changes are pushed to the repository.

What to Store in a Hardware GitHub Repository?

Let’s break down what a well-structured embedded systems GitHub repository might include:

Schematics

Most modern electronic design automation (EDA) tools, including KiCad, Altium Designer, and EasyEDA, save schematics as text-based files or structured XML. This makes them compatible with Git’s diffing and merging capabilities. It’s best to organize schematics by subsystem or board revision in dedicated folders:

/hardware/schematics/v1.0/

/hardware/schematics/v2.0/

PCB Layouts

PCB layout files, such as KiCad .kicad_pcb or Altium .PcbDoc, can be stored alongside schematics. GitHub makes it easy to trace design changes over time, tracking changes like layer modifications, routing updates, or footprint swaps, with each commit linked to a description of why the change was made. Developers should include manufacturing outputs like Gerber files and drill files in separate outputs or manufacturing directories for clarity:

/hardware/manufacturing/v1.0/

/hardware/manufacturing/v2.0/

Firmware

GitHub shines in managing firmware source code, whether written in C, C++, or Assembly. Linking the firmware repository directly to specific hardware revisions ensures the right code is paired with the correct hardware version. Using tags or branches named after hardware revisions (e.g., rev1.0, rev2.0) enables a tight linkage between hardware and firmware. Additionally, utilizing feature branches for significant design changes (e.g., feature/add-usb-interface) and revision branches for hardware versions (e.g., hardware/rev1.1) can improve firmware management.

Mechanical Drawings

If your hardware involves enclosures, brackets, or custom parts, GitHub can store source files (e.g., STEP, STL, DXF) or exported drawings (PDFs) for mechanical designs. These files can live in /mechanical/ or /enclosure/ folders within the repository. Providing mechanical design files can be particularly attractive to potential clients who already own 3D printers, and this means you have less stock to warehouse.

Documentation

Often overlooked, documentation is crucial for long-term sustainability of a project. GitHub offers excellent tools for keeping hardware development organized and up to date. A clear, well-written README.md serves as a human-friendly entry point for the project, while a dedicated /docs/ directory can hold detailed design notes, setup instructions, BOMs, and test procedures. Using a Wiki or GitHub pages makes it easy to host formatted documentation directly from the repository. Meanwhile, markdown files are ideal for writing design notes, guides, and overviews, and they can include images, screenshots, diagrams, and links to datasheets or supplier pages to keep all vital details in one accessible place.

Test and Validation Data

GitHub allows you to store test scripts, validation data, and even results in your repository. Automated test scripts can be versioned like any other code, and result logs can help future teams reproduce or debug issues.

Organizing Your Repository

A well-thought-out organizational structure for your repository is crucial in making it useful throughout the design process. This structure should separate schematic and PCB sources from generated manufacturing files, keeping firmware build artifacts out of src. Additionally, effective organization gives mechanical computer aided drafting (CAD) its own home and reserves docs for the BOMs, guides, and design notes people actually read. When using GitHub for organization, tests and continuous integration (CI) scripts live beside the code they validate, while the top-level README.md explains how to build, program, and order the board, and LICENSE clarifies reuse. Pair this structure with Git’s large file storage (LFS) for big binaries (e.g., STEP, STL, PDFs) and text-friendly formats like KiCad for schematics and PCBs to keep diffs clean, reviews focused, and releases reproducible. A typical embedded systems hardware project might look like this:

/hardware/

    /schematics/

    /pcb_layouts/

    /manufacturing_outputs/  (Gerbers, drill files, assembly drawings)

/firmware/

    /src/

    /bin/

/mechanical/

    /models/  (STEP, STL)

    /drawings/

/docs/

    /BOMs/

    /assembly_guides/

    /design_notes/

/test/

    /scripts/

    /results/

/ci_scripts/  (for automation tasks)

README.md

LICENSE

Collaboration and Workflow Best Practices

Hardware moves fast—and breaks expensively—so your repo needs to be more than a code dump; it should be the single source of truth for schematics, layouts, firmware, manufacturing files, and decisions. Treat GitHub like a lightweight product lifecycle management (PLM): use branches to isolate risky changes, pull requests to stage cross-disciplinary reviews, and employ issues and boards to keep electrical, mechanical, and firmware workstreams aligned. Tie every artifact to a discussion, a decision, and a release for traceability from napkin sketch to shipped product. The practices below show how to turn that principle into a day-to-day workflow that scales from a solo builder to an enterprise hardware team.

Pull Requests and Code Reviews

Pull requests and code reviews can be used for schematic or layout changes just as they are for firmware. Teams can review differences in schematic files—especially when using text-friendly formats like KiCad’s .sch—and discuss design choices in context. Even for schematics and PCB files, pull requests offer a formal way to propose, review, and refine design changes before merging them into the main branch. This process encourages cross-disciplinary reviews, such as having firmware developers check pin assignments or connector choices, while GitHub’s discussion threads help document design decisions along the way.

Issues and Project Boards

Track bugs, hardware errata, and TODOs using GitHub Issues. Organize them into milestones or Kanban-style boards to manage hardware and firmware development side-by-side.

Git LFS

PCB design files, 3D models, and high-resolution documentation can exceed GitHub’s file size limits. Use Git LFS to manage these efficiently, with its ability to handle large binaries without bloating the repository.

Release Tagging and Linking

Tag releases that align hardware revisions with firmware versions (e.g., rev1.0-fw1.0) so it is easy to pull up the exact design files, firmware, and documentation used in any given release. Link issues directly to commits or pull requests to document bug fixes or design changes.

CI/CD for Hardware Projects

Continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD), though standard in software, is becoming increasingly valuable for hardware projects as well. For example, teams can use GitHub Actions or other CI tools to automatically compile firmware whenever new code is pushed. Documentation can be automatically generated, converting Markdown files to PDFs or exporting BOMs directly from source files. Scripts can run design rule checks to verify layout constraints or ensure schematic consistency. For instance, a commit to the firmware directory can trigger an automated build, while an update to the documentation folder can regenerate and publish the latest docs to GitHub Pages.

Integrating GitHub with Third-Party Add-ons

Integrating third-party tools like Kitspace with GitHub provides an elegant solution for sharing PCB design files in a way that’s accessible, transparent, and fabrication-ready. Kitspace connects directly to your public GitHub repository and automatically generates a rich, browsable project page that includes rendered board previews, BOMs, and links to PCB manufacturers and distributors. By simply adding a .kitspace.yaml configuration file to the repository and following Kitspace’s conventions, especially for KiCad projects, hardware designers can offer collaborators, manufacturers, and the broader community an interactive view of their design without requiring specialized software to open the files. This integration streamlines collaboration, making it easy to keep documentation, schematics, layouts, and manufacturing outputs synchronized and accessible.

GitHub Limitations for Hardware Projects

While GitHub provides a strong backbone for hardware projects, there are a few important considerations to keep in mind. PCB layout files stored as binaries cannot be diffed in a meaningful way, so it’s best to use text-based EDA tools whenever possible. Merging schematic or layout changes can also be challenging without good coordination, so teams should use branches thoughtfully and communicate frequently to avoid conflicts. Additionally, GitHub has a file size limitation of 100MB per file, so very large designs or mechanical assemblies might require Git LFS or an alternative hosting solution.

Conclusion

GitHub isn’t just for software-only projects anymore. As hardware development grows more complex and collaborative, version control systems like Git have become invaluable tools for managing everything from schematics and PCB layouts to firmware, mechanical files, and documentation. By bringing hardware into the same structured, trackable workflows that software teams rely on, engineers can achieve new levels of efficiency, reproducibility, and teamwork.