Prerequisites

mcltspice drives LTspice in batch mode. How you set it up depends on your platform: on Linux it runs LTspice through Wine (fully headless), and on macOS it drives the native LTspice.app directly (no Wine).

Note

Native macOS support is new and under active validation. The Linux/Wine path is the mature one. If you hit a rough edge on macOS, the check_installation tool is the fastest way to see what the server detected.

Linux (Wine)

mcltspice drives LTspice through Wine in headless batch mode. You need two things: a working Wine installation and the LTspice application files extracted from the Windows installer.

Install Wine

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S wine

Debian / Ubuntu

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt update
sudo apt install wine64

Fedora

sudo dnf install wine

Verify the installation:

wine --version

Tip

mcltspice uses Wine in batch mode only. No display server or GUI is needed --- it works fine in headless environments, containers, and SSH sessions.

Extract LTspice

LTspice is distributed as a Windows .msi installer. Rather than running it through Wine’s installer, extract the files directly with 7z.

1. Download LTspice

   Get LTspice64.msi from analog.com/ltspice.

2. Extract the MSI

   7z x LTspice64.msi -oltspice
   cd ltspice
   7z x disk1.cab

3. Initialize a Wine prefix

   export WINEPREFIX=$PWD/.wine
   export WINEARCH=win64
   wineboot --init

   This creates a minimal Wine prefix in the same directory. LTspice does not need a full Windows environment --- the prefix just provides the runtime.

Note

You need p7zip (or 7zip) installed to extract the MSI. On Arch: sudo pacman -S p7zip. On Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install p7zip-full.

Set the LTspice directory

mcltspice looks for LTspice in this order:

1. The LTSPICE_DIR environment variable
2. The default path: ~/claude/ltspice/extracted/ltspice

If your extracted files are elsewhere, set the environment variable:

export LTSPICE_DIR=/path/to/your/extracted/ltspice

For persistent configuration, add it to your shell profile (~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc, etc.) or pass it through your MCP client configuration.

Tip

The directory should contain the XVIIx64.exe binary and the lib/ folder with component libraries. If you see those files, the extraction worked correctly.

macOS

macOS has a native universal LTspice build, so there is no Wine, no WINEPREFIX, and no Z:\ drive translation. mcltspice calls the native binary directly.

Install LTspice.app

Install LTspice from the Mac App Store or from analog.com/ltspice. This gives you a native universal binary (Apple Silicon and Intel) at:

/Applications/LTspice.app/Contents/MacOS/LTspice

Populate the library

The component library lives outside the app bundle, at ~/Library/Application Support/LTspice/, with lib/{sym,sub,cmp} underneath. LTspice unpacks this from a bundled lib.zip the first time it launches from the GUI.

1. Launch LTspice.app once, interactively.

   Open LTspice from Finder or Spotlight. On first launch it populates ~/Library/Application Support/LTspice/lib/. This step is required before batch simulations can resolve symbols and models.

2. Confirm the library exists.

   ls ~/Library/Application\ Support/LTspice/lib
   # expect: sym  sub  cmp

Set the binary path

mcltspice looks for the LTspice binary in this order:

1. The LTSPICE_BIN environment variable
2. The default path: /Applications/LTspice.app/Contents/MacOS/LTspice

If you installed LTspice.app elsewhere, set the override:

export LTSPICE_BIN=/path/to/LTspice.app/Contents/MacOS/LTspice

LTSPICE_BIN is the macOS equivalent of LTSPICE_DIR on Linux — it points mcltspice at the executable. The library root (~/Library/Application Support/LTspice/) is resolved separately.

Caution

GUI-session requirement. Mac LTspice is an Aqua GUI application. It runs batch simulations, but it needs an active login/GUI session — it will not run over a bare SSH connection with no logged-in desktop. This is the opposite of the Linux/Wine path, which runs fully headless. Run mcltspice from a Mac that has a user logged in at the desktop.

Verify the setup

Once LTspice is in place, use the check_installation tool to confirm everything is working:

check_installation()

The report is the single source of truth for whether the box is usable, and its contents differ by platform.

On Linux it checks for:

• Wine availability and version
• LTspice binary presence
• Library and symbol directories
• Write permissions for output files

On macOS it reports:

• The platform
• The resolved native binary path (from LTSPICE_BIN or the default)
• The resolved library root (~/Library/Application Support/LTspice/)
• The detected LTspice version
• GUI-session availability (whether an active login session is present to run batch jobs)

If any check fails, the tool reports exactly what is missing and how to fix it.