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Skillsartifact-diagram

artifact-diagram

Design & creation

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Updated 10-16 02:36

About this skill

artifact-diagram

OUTPUT CONTRACT

Produces ONE .html file with inline <svg> elements.

  • Diagrams are inline SVG. NEVER <img> references to external image files. NEVER Mermaid \``mermaid` blocks. NEVER PlantUML. NEVER ASCII boxes.
  • Annotations and labels are real HTML elements (<aside class="note">, <div class="legend">) layered over or beside the SVG — not text inside <text> only.
  • File extension is .html, always.

Inline-SVG diagrams. Boxes, arrows, swimlanes, dependency graphs — rendered in a single .html so they're self-contained, scalable, and editable in any text editor.

Read artifact-css/SKILL.md first for the OUTPUT CONTRACT, design tokens, and class vocabulary. This skill uses no jQuery — diagrams are static.

When to reach for this skill

  • User wants to see the relationships between things — modules, services, request paths, decision branches.
  • User says "draw the architecture", "map this package", "diagram the data flow", "show me the call graph", "ERD this schema".
  • User wants something they can paste into a PR description, a design doc, or a wiki page.

If they want a clickable flow (real UI screens linked by hotspots), use artifact-flow. If they want a slide-deck-style visualization, use artifact-deck.

Three templates

Template Shape
templates/flowchart.html Top-down or left-right boxes-and-arrows. Decision diamonds, action rects, start/end ellipses.
templates/module-map.html Cluster of package boxes with dependency arrows. Optional zoom to a focused module.
templates/svg-figure-sheet.html A page of independent SVG figures, each with caption + legend. Used when one document contains many diagrams.

Anatomy of a flowchart

  1. Header — eyebrow + title + lead explaining what the diagram represents.
  2. Diagram canvas — inline <svg viewBox="..."> with a fixed coordinate system. 800-1200px wide is the sweet spot.
  3. Nodes — <g class="node"> per box. Standard shapes: rectangle for action, diamond for decision, rounded-rect for start/end, hexagon for input.
  4. Edges — <path> arrows between nodes. Bezier or orthogonal. Always end with an arrowhead marker.
  5. Legend — a small .panel adjacent to the SVG explaining shape semantics and color semantics.
  6. Notes — .note blocks below the diagram capturing the things a static diagram can't show (assumptions, error paths intentionally omitted, "see also" links).

SVG conventions (use these, don't invent your own)

<svg viewBox="0 0 1000 600" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="diagram">
  <defs>
    <marker id="arrow" viewBox="0 0 10 10" refX="9" refY="5" markerWidth="6" markerHeight="6" orient="auto">
      <path d="M0,0 L10,5 L0,10 z" fill="var(--slate)" />
    </marker>
  </defs>

  <!-- Action box -->
  <g class="node node-action">
    <rect x="40" y="40" width="180" height="60" rx="8" fill="var(--paper)" stroke="var(--slate)" stroke-width="1.5"/>
    <text x="130" y="76" text-anchor="middle" font-family="system-ui" font-size="14" fill="var(--slate)">Validate request</text>
  </g>

  <!-- Decision diamond -->
  <g class="node node-decision">
    <polygon points="400,40 520,90 400,140 280,90" fill="var(--oat)" stroke="var(--slate)" stroke-width="1.5"/>
    <text x="400" y="95" text-anchor="middle" font-family="system-ui" font-size="13" fill="var(--slate)">Token valid?</text>
  </g>

  <!-- Edge -->
  <path d="M 220 70 L 280 90" stroke="var(--slate)" stroke-width="1.5" fill="none" marker-end="url(#arrow)"/>
</svg>

Standard sizes (use these):

  • Action rect: 180×60, rx=8
  • Decision diamond: ~240 wide × 100 tall
  • Start/end pill: 120×40, rx=20
  • Node spacing: 80-100px gap between adjacent nodes

Color semantics

Reuse the artifact.css palette:

  • var(--paper) fill — neutral / pass-through node
  • var(--oat) fill — branching / decision node
  • var(--gray-100) fill — passive / data-store node
  • var(--clay) fill — the node that's the focus / "you are here" / hot path
  • var(--olive) fill — success / done state
  • var(--rust) fill — error / failure path
  • var(--sky) fill — async / deferred / queue

Strokes always 1.5px, var(--slate). Don't use 1px — it looks anemic.

Labels and annotations

Three places labels can live:

  1. Inside the node — <text> element, centered. Short label only (one or two words).
  2. On the edge — <text> element midway along the path. Used for branch conditions ("yes" / "no" / "if cached").
  3. Outside the SVG, in HTML — for longer prose. Numbered callouts: <sup class="anno-num">①</sup> next to a node, with a matching <li> in a .highlights list below the canvas explaining what's happening at ①.

Prose belongs in HTML, not in <text>. SVG text doesn't reflow, doesn't wrap, doesn't copy-paste cleanly.

Voice and density rules

  1. One diagram per question. A diagram trying to answer three questions is unreadable. Three small diagrams beat one giant one.
  2. Aspect ratio matches the question. Linear flows go left-to-right. Decision trees go top-down. Cyclic systems go radial.
  3. No more than 12-15 nodes. Beyond that, abstract into clusters or split.
  4. Arrows have one direction. Don't draw ↔ two-way arrows unless you really mean bidirectional — use two unidirectional arrows otherwise.
  5. Color is for semantics, not decoration. If a box is olive, it means something specific (success). Don't make a box olive because "it looked good there".

Fallback contract

SVG is native HTML5 — there's no JS dependency to fall back from. The diagram renders identically with JS disabled.

If the user prints the page, SVG scales to print resolution losslessly.

Common mistakes

  • Mermaid blocks instead of SVG. Mermaid renders at the browser via JS — if JS is disabled or the renderer breaks, the user gets a fenced code block. Inline SVG works always.
  • <img src="diagram.png">. Defeats the single-file contract. The diagram must live inside the .html.
  • Text wrapped in <foreignObject>. Tempting for HTML text in SVG, but breaks copy-paste and print. Use SVG <text> for labels and HTML elements outside the SVG for prose.
  • Coordinates without viewBox. Without viewBox, the SVG doesn't scale responsively. Always set one.
  • No arrowhead marker. A path without a marker is a line, not an arrow. Wire the marker in <defs> once and reference it on every edge.

After the artifact

Offer two derivatives:

  1. A flat text outline of the diagram: nodes listed, edges listed. Useful when a PR reviewer wants the diagram in commit-message format.
  2. A copy-ready exported SVG-only fragment (the <svg>...</svg> extracted) for pasting into a docs system that accepts inline SVG.