drawio-skill — From Text to Professional Diagrams

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A skill that turns natural language and real system sources into maintainable .drawio architecture models. Beyond generation and export, it incrementally synchronizes without discarding manual layout, projects multiple views from one model, enforces architecture contracts, queries dependencies, simulates failure propagation, and publishes dependency-free interactive walkthroughs. Works with Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, OpenClaw, Codex, Autohand Code, Hermes, and any agent compatible with the Agent Skills format.

✨ Highlights

• Architecture digital twin / Diagram IR — separate meaning, provenance, and geometry; project executive, system, deployment, data-flow, and security views from one model
• Incremental sync without losing manual layout — diagramctl sync updates changed nodes/relations while preserving tuned coordinates, styles, and annotations; removals stay reviewable by default
• Diagram-as-Test — YAML/JSON rules for direct Internet-to-database access, cycles, orphans, ownership, production observability, external timeouts, trust-boundary protocols, and color contrast
• Architecture query and review — query components/owners/boundaries/paths, identify articulation points and high coupling, and emit Markdown/JSON review reports
• What-if + Story Mode — simulate failure propagation with an annotated diagram; publish an offline, keyboard-accessible HTML walkthrough with text alternative, provenance, and language switching
• MCP server built in — scripts/diagramctl_mcp.py exposes nine tools (build/sync/views/architecture_test/review/query/whatif/story/doctor) to Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, Codex, and any MCP host; stdlib-only and offline, no mcp package
• One CLI — doctor/build/sync/views/query/test/review/whatif/story/publish/transform connects the toolbox; core semantic workflows need only Python and are offline by default
• 11 diagram type presets — ERD, UML Class, Sequence, C4, Architecture, ML/Deep Learning, Flowchart, SysML (BDD / IBD / Requirement / Parametric), BPMN, Network Topology, Cross-Functional Swimlane
• Mermaid → native .drawio (draw.io ≥ 30) — author 28 standard types as Mermaid text (mindmap, gantt, timeline, journey, pie, sankey, kanban…) and the CLI converts them into a laid-out, editable .drawio — structure in, layout free
• Visualize a codebase — extract and auto-lay-out the structure of a Python / JS-TS / Go / Rust project (import graphs) or a Python class hierarchy — Graphviz placement, transitive reduction, nested module containers
• IaC → architecture diagram — turn Terraform configs, Kubernetes manifests, or docker-compose files into an architecture diagram where every resource renders as its official AWS / Azure / GCP / K8s icon, edges derived from actual references (role ARNs, selectors, volume mounts)
• SQL DDL → ER diagram — parse CREATE TABLE statements into per-table nodes with PK/FK markers and crow's-foot foreign-key edges
• Deterministic sequence diagrams — describe participants + messages as JSON; lifelines, auto-tracked activation bars, and arrows are computed, never hand-placed
• C4 model with drill-down — one command generates the multi-page System Context → Container → Component set with official C4 shapes; parent elements click through to their child page
• Search 10,000+ official shapes — resolve the exact AWS / Azure / GCP / Cisco / Kubernetes / UML / BPMN icon style instead of guessing (no more blank-box shape=mxgraph.* typos)
• AI / LLM brand logos — 321 logos (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Mistral, Llama, Ollama, LangChain…) that draw.io has none of, plus 18 data-store brands (Redis, Postgres, Qdrant, Milvus…) for LLM/RAG architecture diagrams
• Self-check + auto-fix — reads its own PNG output and auto-fixes overlaps, clipped labels, stacked edges, and more (up to 2 rounds)
• Iterative feedback loop — up to 5 rounds of targeted refinement
• Style presets — capture your visual style from a .drawio file or image, reuse on demand
• Clean layout — grid-aligned, spacing scales with diagram size, connectors routed clear of nodes
• CI-ready — official drawio-architecture-test GitHub Action enforces architecture contracts on every PR with no draw.io/Xvfb/Graphviz install; visual PR diff action for rendered .drawio
• Multi-agent, no daemon — portable Agent Skills package plus an optional MCP server for host integrations (core semantic workflows need only Python; native export remains optional)

🗺️ Feature Map

A bird's-eye view of everything the skill does — diagram types, import sources, layout engines, styling, export formats, and repurposing — in one map. Fittingly, this map was itself drawn with drawio-skill.

🖼️ Examples

The maintained Architecture Studio showcase covers code → IR → .drawio, conflict-aware synchronization that preserves a manually tuned layout, and architecture → policy/views/what-if/accessible Story. Every artifact is regenerated by one script and verified in the test suite.

[!TIP] The hero image above was generated from this single prompt:

Create a microservices e-commerce architecture with Mobile/Web/Admin clients,
API Gateway (auth + rate limiting + routing), Auth/User/Order/Product/Payment
services, Kafka message queue, Notification service, and User DB / Order DB /
Product DB / Redis Cache / Stripe API

The skill is designed to route edges cleanly across different topologies, avoiding lines that cross through shapes:

Star · 7 nodes Central message broker with 6 microservices radiating outward, no edge crossings on this example.

Layered · 10 nodes / 4 tiers E-commerce stack with horizontal and diagonal cross-connections routed via corridors.

Ring · 8 nodes CI/CD pipeline with a closed loop and 2 spur branches flowing along the perimeter.

It also speaks Mermaid — standard types (flowchart, mindmap, kanban, gitGraph, timeline…) convert straight to native, editable .drawio. Here's a Kanban board (this project's own roadmap) generated from a few lines of Mermaid:

Tube-Map Mode restyles a pipeline or journey as a London-Underground-style metro map — coloured lines, octilinear (H/V/45°) routing, and white interchange circles. Here's the skill's own flow (this map is assets/tubemap.json, ~20 lines):

Full walkthrough in docs/USAGE.md.

🚀 Installation

1. Install the draw.io desktop CLI

Verify with drawio --version. Version ≥ 30 recommended — it unlocks Mermaid → .drawio conversion and the ELK --layout pass (both unavailable on ≤ 29). On WSL2 the CLI is the Windows desktop exe reached via /mnt/c — the skill detects this automatically (see troubleshooting). Full recipes in docs/INSTALL_CLI.md.

2. Install the skill

# Any agent (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, ...)
npx skills add Agents365-ai/365-skills -g

# Claude Code plugin marketplace
> /plugin marketplace add Agents365-ai/365-skills
> /plugin install drawio

# Manual install
git clone https://github.com/Agents365-ai/drawio-skill.git \
  ~/.claude/skills/drawio-skill

# Autohand Code global install
git clone https://github.com/Agents365-ai/drawio-skill.git \
  ~/.autohand/skills/drawio-skill

# Autohand Code project-level install
git clone https://github.com/Agents365-ai/drawio-skill.git \
  .autohand/skills/drawio-skill

Autohand Code also supports autohand --skill-install for cataloged skills, with --project for workspace-level installs. Until this skill is listed there, use the direct clone path above.

Also indexed on SkillsMP.

Updating: /plugin update drawio (Claude Code), skills update drawio-skill (SkillsMP), or git pull for manual installs — see docs/INSTALL_SKILL.md#updates. Release history in CHANGELOG.md.

⚡ Quick Start

After installation, just describe what you want. For example, an ML model:

Draw a Transformer encoder-decoder for machine translation: 6-layer encoder
with self-attention, 6-layer decoder with cross-attention, input embeddings
(batch × 512 × 768), positional encoding, and a final output projection.
Annotate tensor shapes between layers and color-code by layer type.

The skill plans the layout, generates the .drawio XML, exports to your chosen format, self-checks the result, and lets you iterate.

🗺️ Visualize Code & Infrastructure

Beyond hand-authored diagrams, the skill turns existing code, infrastructure, and schemas into diagrams — no manual coordinates. Just ask:

"Visualize the module structure of this Python project" · "Draw the class hierarchy of mypackage"

_{↑ Python's logging package as a class hierarchy — one command, modules auto-boxed, every inheritance edge resolved.}

Under the hood it runs a bundled extractor → auto-layout → validate pipeline:

# Import graph — Python / JS-TS / Go / Rust
python3 scripts/pyimports.py   myproject --group -o graph.json
python3 scripts/jsimports.py   ./src     --group -o graph.json
python3 scripts/goimports.py   ./module  --group -o graph.json
python3 scripts/rustimports.py ./crate   --group -o graph.json

# Python class-inheritance hierarchy
python3 scripts/pyclasses.py   mypackage --group -o graph.json

# Infrastructure as Code — official cloud icons resolved automatically
python3 scripts/tfimports.py   ./infra      -o graph.json   # Terraform → AWS/Azure/GCP icons
python3 scripts/k8simports.py  ./manifests  -o graph.json   # K8s YAML/JSON → kind icons
python3 scripts/composeimports.py compose.yml -o graph.json # services + named volumes

# Live infrastructure — draw what's ACTUALLY running / deployed
terraform show -json          | python3 scripts/tfstate.py -      -o graph.json  # deployed cloud
docker inspect $(docker ps -q)| python3 scripts/dockerimports.py -  -o graph.json  # running containers
kubectl get all,ing,cm,secret,pvc -o json | python3 scripts/k8simports.py - -o graph.json  # live cluster

# Data & interactions
python3 scripts/sqlerd.py      schema.sql   -o graph.json   # SQL DDL → ER diagram
python3 scripts/ciimports.py . -o graph.json              # GitHub Actions + GitLab CI -> pipeline DAG
python3 scripts/openapiimports.py openapi.yaml -o graph.json # OpenAPI/Swagger → API diagram (by method)
python3 scripts/seqlayout.py   seq.json  -o sequence.drawio # sequence diagram, direct to .drawio
python3 scripts/c4.py          c4.json   -o c4.drawio       # C4 model, multi-page + drill-down

# Diff two diagrams / snapshots → colour-coded "what changed"
python3 scripts/drawiodiff.py old.drawio new.drawio -o graph.json # +added -removed ~changed

# Architecture time-lapse → self-contained HTML player of how a codebase grew
python3 scripts/timelapse.py src --importer pyimports # → architecture-evolution.html

# Reverse: describe an existing .drawio as structured Markdown (README / PR summary)
python3 scripts/explain.py    architecture.drawio -o architecture.md

# Diagram → PowerPoint deck (one page per slide; C4 model → presentation)
python3 scripts/drawio2pptx.py c4.drawio -o c4.pptx   # needs: pip install python-pptx

# Interactive HTML viewer — pan/zoom/search/tabs + working drill-down links, one file
python3 scripts/drawiohtml.py c4.drawio -o c4.html

# Animated data-flow SVG — edges "flow" (marching ants); renders on GitHub
python3 scripts/svgflow.py    architecture.drawio -o flow.svg

# Reverse: .drawio → Mermaid flowchart (diagrams-as-code GitHub renders)
python3 scripts/drawio2mermaid.py architecture.drawio --fenced -o arch.md

# Language variant: extract labels → translate values → apply (layout untouched)
python3 scripts/relabel.py architecture.drawio --extract -o labels.json
python3 scripts/relabel.py architecture.drawio --map labels.json -o architecture_cn.drawio

# Re-theme an existing .drawio with a style preset (e.g. dark mode)
python3 scripts/restyle.py architecture.drawio --preset dark

# Colour an existing .drawio by data → cost / latency / traffic heat map
python3 scripts/heatmap.py    architecture.drawio -m latency.csv --size -o hot.drawio

# any extractor → auto-layout → editable .drawio
python3 scripts/autolayout.py  graph.json -o diagram.drawio

# Image → editable .drawio — your vision extracts the graph JSON, this rebuilds it
python3 scripts/raster2drawio.py whiteboard-graph.json -o out.drawio

# Watch a diagram build itself, node by node → HTML player (+ optional GIF)
python3 scripts/buildup.py architecture.drawio --gif build.gif  # → buildup.html

# Big diagram → boardroom exec summary (clustered) + click-to-drill-down to full
python3 scripts/compress.py  big.drawio -o exec.drawio

# Decision-tree flowchart → click-through HTML triage runbook (no draw.io CLI needed)
python3 scripts/runbook.py   triage.drawio -o triage.html

# CI: render base/head/diff PNGs + Markdown report for every .drawio a PR changed
python3 scripts/prdiff.py --base origin/main --head HEAD -o drawio-pr/report.md

# Tube-Map Mode — restyle a pipeline / journey as a metro / subway map
python3 scripts/tubemap.py metro.json -o metro.drawio

Layout needs Graphviz (brew install graphviz / apt install graphviz) — optional; everything else works without it. Full format + flag reference in references/autolayout.md. Regenerate, validate (--strict gate) and render headlessly in CI: docs/CI.md.

🧩 Supported Diagram Types

🔍 Shape Search

Need a real AWS / Azure / GCP / Cisco / Kubernetes / UML / BPMN icon? The skill searches 10,000+ official draw.io shapes for the exact style string — so vendor icons render correctly instead of falling back to a blank box from a guessed shape=mxgraph.* name.

"Add an AWS Lambda wired to an S3 bucket" · "Use the real Kubernetes pod icon"

python3 scripts/shapesearch.py "aws lambda" --limit 5
# → Lambda (77x93)
#   outlineConnect=0;...;shape=mxgraph.aws3.lambda;fillColor=#F58534;...

_{↑ A serverless AWS architecture — every icon is the real official draw.io shape resolved by shapesearch.py, not a hand-guessed shape= string.}

Covers AWS / Azure / GCP / Cisco / Kubernetes / UML / BPMN / ER / electrical / P&ID and the general shape sets. Hand-writable style cheatsheet + search usage in references/shapes.md.

🤖 AI / LLM Brand Logos

draw.io ships no modern AI/LLM logos, so an LLM-app diagram renders as generic boxes. aiicons.py resolves a brand name to a draw.io image style for any of 321 logos (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Mistral, Llama, Cohere, DeepSeek, Qwen, Ollama, LangChain, HuggingFace…) from lobe-icons (MIT), plus 18 data-store brands (Redis, Postgres, MongoDB, Qdrant, Milvus, Supabase…) via simple-icons (CC0) for RAG stacks.

python3 scripts/aiicons.py "claude" --json      # CDN-referenced (default)
python3 scripts/aiicons.py "openai" --embed     # self-contained data URI

_{↑ A multi-provider LLM app — every brand logo resolved by aiicons.py. Icons are referenced from the unpkg CDN by default (network needed at render time); --embed inlines them for offline use. Logos are trademarks of their owners, used for identification only.}

🎨 Style Presets

Capture a visual style once, reuse it everywhere. Five presets are built in — default, corporate, handdrawn, colorblind-safe (Okabe-Ito palette), dark — and you can teach the skill your own style from a .drawio file or a flat image:

Draw a microservices architecture using my "corporate" style

Learn my style from ~/diagrams/brand.drawio as "mybrand"

The skill extracts colors, shapes, fonts, and edge style, renders a preview, and only saves the preset after you approve. Full preset-management commands in docs/STYLE_PRESETS.md.

🔄 How it works

Behind the scenes: check dependencies → plan layout → generate .drawio XML → export draft PNG → self-check + auto-fix (up to 2 rounds) → show to user → 5-round feedback loop until approved → final export.

🆚 Comparison

vs Other draw.io Skills & Tools

Feature	drawio-skill	jgraph/drawio-mcp (official)	bahayonghang/drawio-skills	GBSOSS/ai-drawio
Approach	Pure SKILL.md + optional MCP server	MCP servers / Claude Code plugin / Project	YAML DSL + CLI (MCP optional)	Claude Code plugin
Dependencies	draw.io desktop only	draw.io desktop	draw.io desktop (MCP optional)	draw.io plugin + browser
Multi-agent	✅ 6 platforms	⚠️ MCP hosts (Claude, Cursor, VS Code)	✅ Claude / Gemini / Codex	❌ Claude Code only
Self-check + auto-fix	✅ 2-round (reads PNG)	❌	✅ validation + strict mode	❌ screenshot only
Iterative review	✅ 5-round loop	❌ generate once	✅ 3 workflows	❌
Diagram presets	✅ 7 types	❌	✅ paper-mode classifier	❌
Mermaid authoring	✅ 28 types (CLI ≥ 30)	✅	❌	❌
ML/DL diagrams	✅ tensor shapes, layer colors	❌	❌	❌
Color system	✅ 7-color semantic	❌	✅ 6 themes	❌
Official shape search	✅ 10k+ shapes (local)	✅ 10k+ shapes (MCP)	❌	❌
AI/LLM brand logos	✅ 321 + 18 data-store	❌	❌	❌
Browser fallback	✅ diagrams.net URL (viewer + editable)	✅ diagrams.net URL (plugin) + inline preview	✅ via optional MCP	✅ diagrams.net viewer (primary)
Zero-config	✅ copy skills/drawio-skill/	✅	✅ desktop-only mode	❌ needs plugin install

Using the official jgraph plugin? jgraph/drawio-mcp now ships an official Claude Code plugin (/plugin install drawio@drawio) that also generates .drawio and exports via the desktop CLI. drawio-skill is complementary — reach for it when you want the code / IaC / SQL / OpenAPI importers, AI-brand logos, deterministic sequence & C4 generators, self-check + review loop, and the interactive HTML viewer, all from a single SKILL.md with no MCP server.

Full comparison + key-advantages summary in docs/COMPARISON.md (with audit timestamp).

🎯 When to use (and when not to)

Good fit:

• Polished, precise diagrams — stakeholder decks, architecture, network topology, strict UML, ER diagrams
• Solid opaque fills, 10,000+ official shapes, branded icons (AWS / Azure / GCP / Cisco / Kubernetes + AI/LLM logos), swimlanes, and custom geometry
• Anything you'll export to PNG / SVG / PDF and keep editable

Reach for a sibling skill instead when you need:

• A casual, hand-drawn / whiteboard look → excalidraw-skill or tldraw-skill
• Diagrams-as-code that live in git and render in Markdown → mermaid-skill (general) or plantuml-skill (UML)
• Freeform infinite-canvas sketching / freehand strokes → tldraw-skill

🔗 Related Skills

Part of the Agents365-ai diagram-skill family — pick the right tool for the job:

👤 Author

Agents365-ai

• GitHub: https://github.com/Agents365-ai
• Bilibili: https://space.bilibili.com/441831884

📄 License

MIT