shouldn't openroad's routing tool always insert shapes as wires on the wire tracks? usually that's the case but in a few odd instances it inserted off track wires and vias that are not on the track intersections which violates my DRCs| am I missing something?

Is possible to add a test case

how do I do that? could you point me to the documentation for doing so?

Which flow you are using like OpenLane, caravel or OpenROAD flow scripts, etc

@Vijayan Krishnan i'm using custom openlane flow with these steps

that means, OpenLane2 I think. You can raise a github issue in OpenROAD for help with .gds/ .odb file by highlighting issue

yes openlane2 sorry

Please do open an issue with a test case if you can, but generally, no, OpenROAD does not have to create routing that's always on the grid. It prefers on-grid routing but it can go off-grid if that ends up being a lower-cost solution.

It would be helpful to show the layer below as I guess this landing on a pin

I see, thanks for the info Austin

pin access prefers to be on-grid but may be off grid if needed

as Austin described that would be an expected behavior for openroad to go off grid and drop a via on the pin