Guides / Claude Duet for hardware · Updated 23 October 2026

Claude Duet for hardware teams: daily BOM stock and price alerts

Parts run out between the day you finish a design and the day you order. Claude Duet checks your apps every few hours and messages you only when something needs attention, which is exactly what a BOM needs. Here is how to set it up with an electronic parts MCP server and what to ask it.

Why a BOM needs watching

On 19 October 2026 we priced every line of the open-source OpenFC-Lite flight controller at Mouser and DigiKey for 100 boards. Only 21 of its 48 lines could be bought in full at either of them that day; the rest had no stock, too little stock or reel-only minimum orders. The board was designed for JLCPCB assembly, so many lines were covered there instead, but even its buck converter had zero stock at both US distributors.

Bar chart: of 48 BOM lines for 100 OpenFC-Lite boards on 19 October 2026, Mouser had full stock for 17, DigiKey for 13, either one for 21 and neither for 27 — A one-day snapshot. Details in our Mouser vs DigiKey comparison.

Stock also moves fast. Over 120 days JLCPCB’s stock of the ESP32-C3-MINI-1-N4 module went from 2,638 to zero as Espressif phased it out (ESP32 module prices). A check you ran last month says little about today.

What Duet adds

An assistant like Claude Code or the Claude app can already check a BOM when you ask. Duet changes who remembers to ask:

It checks on a schedule. Every few hours, on its own virtual machine, whether your laptop is open or not.
It only speaks up when something changed: a part out of stock for your quantity, a lifecycle change, a big price jump.
It puts the result in the morning brief, next to the supplier email and the invoice that came in overnight.
It prepares the fix: finds a replacement, updates the BOM and has an order ready for you to approve.

Set it up

Get Duet. It is a research preview for US Claude Pro and Max subscribers, through a waitlist (what Claude Duet is).
Connect a parts server. Add Next Everything as a custom connector on your Claude account; Duet picks it up. Steps: Claude Duet setup.
Give Duet the BOM once. Attach the CSV from KiCad, Altium or EasyEDA and say how many boards. Duet calls create_project and check_bom, and the project gets a live page with the BOM and prices.
Tell it what to watch and how often. For example, the message below.

Keep an eye on the BOM in my Next Everything project "OpenFC rev 3.3" for 100 boards.
Check it twice a day. Tell me only if a line no longer has enough stock,
a part is marked NRND or obsolete, or the total goes up by more than 5%.
If a part runs out, find an in-stock replacement in the same package
and show me the comparison. Do not order anything without asking.

Things to ask Duet

“Which parts in my BOM have less than two builds of stock left anywhere?”
“Is the RP2354B in stock for 100 boards anywhere, and which source is cheapest?”
“Put the JLCPCB assembly fees for 10 boards in this morning’s brief.” (why they matter)
“Prepare the order for 100 boards and send me the payment link when everything is in stock.”

What an alert can look like

An illustrative example of a brief item, not real output:

OpenFC rev 3.3 (100 boards): the buck converter line no longer has enough stock at the distributor it was priced from. I found two in-stock parts in the same package with the same pinout and output range; the comparison is on the project page. Want me to switch the line?

Ordering, with you in the loop

There are two approval steps. Duet asks before it calls anything that spends money, and Next Everything’s place_order does not charge either: it re-checks stock and price and emails you a payment link. You see the final total with shipping before you pay.

What it costs

Duet itself is part of Claude Pro or Max. Its checks use your plan’s usage limits, so twice a day is cheaper than every hour, and a BOM that changes rarely does not need hourly checks. Next Everything has a free account for checking BOMs and searching parts.

Limits to keep in mind

Duet is an early version and may misjudge urgency. Keep the rules in your message simple and numeric.
Prices and stock come from distributor data at the time of each check and change daily.
Duet does not show its browser yet; for anything that matters, open the project page and check the numbers yourself.

Sources

About this guide

We build Next Everything, an MCP server that lets AI assistants and agents check a BOM against the JLCPCB/LCSC catalog and live Mouser and DigiKey prices, and order the parts you approve. Features, prices and availability here are as announced by each company and reported in the press on the date above. These products are in beta or preview and change often.

Next Everything is not affiliated with Anthropic, Meta, OpenAI, xAI, Hark or the other companies named here. Product names belong to their owners.