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arch-lab

Opening the shared document

Diagram playground

Canvas editing for C4 diagrams and sequence diagrams. Nothing leaves your browser. Syntax reference

What you can do on the canvas, and how the formats relate
  • a C4 node drags to a position the text records
  • a sequence message or lifeline drags into a new order, its wording edited in place
  • a C4 node's type, name, description, technology, icon, colour, tags and boundary edited in the details panel beside it, where a child view is added or removed, a selected boundary renamed or removed, and a selected relationship's wording, direction and line style edited — or the relationship deleted
  • a new C4 node — or a reference to an element from an outer level — added from the palette, at a spot the text records
  • a relationship drawn from one C4 element onto another — or onto a new element added with it — landing as a relationship line
  • C4 nodes group into a boundary with a drag selection — the Select / Pan toggle by the zoom controls makes a drag pan instead
  • on a sequence diagram: reword a step · change ends · move a step in time · remove a step · rename a lifeline · move a column · remove a lifeline · add a step · add a lifeline · number the steps
  • the other kinds lay themselves out from the text

.alab is the format to write: it is what the syntax reference documents, what share links carry, and what reads cleanly in a code review. .archlab.json is the same C4 model on disk — the interchange form any other tool can read without implementing a grammar; the two are lossless twins in both directions (proved on every build), so you never have to write the JSON by hand. Mermaid is read and written too, lossily — the format toggle above the pane converts in place and states what each direction drops.

Tab indents · Esc then Tab leaves the editor · syntax reference

Diagram
2016201820212024Two people and a prototypeA single Rails app on one box, deployed by hand on Friday afternoons.First paying customerSplit the monolith into an API and a web appThe first time anything was called a service. Nothing was extracted for another two years.Moved the order store off the shared databaseHired the first platform engineerThe Friday deploy freeze endedContinuous delivery landed, and with it the first real staging environment.Opened the public APIThree customers built on it in the first month, which set the compatibility policy the teamstill keeps to.Acquired the reporting team, and with them a second data pipeline thatcounted every one of the same numbers slightly differentlyReconciled over the following year, which is how long it takes two teams to agree what anorder is.First region outside EuropeRewrote the billing serviceTen million orders in a single month