We have indeed started with the schematic/requirements half of the problem. My experience in industry is there can be much more direct reuse/configuration in schematic as many boards might have similar features. Layout is typically quite bespoke as it will have mechanical constraints.

That said, we are absolutely looking to take on the layout section in the near future. We are starting with some augmentations of kicad, for example we just released a layout reuse feature, where component layouts can be captured and shared along with the ato code.

I think with few exceptions defining explicit layout choices in our language will be painful and not the right path (perhaps connector positions would be an exception). We have not put a huge amount of energy into this yet, but from some initial playing around, we believe capturing all the information that a person would use to judge a quality layout will be crucial. For example, current tools do not have concepts of current/voltage and definitely not transient behavior.

To get to actually good auto-layout that doesnt suck is going to be a slog for sure.

Thanks!