Specification

In the specification, you define your notation.

Element kind

Defines element kinds that are used in the model:

specification {
  // Define whatever you want
  element user
  element cloud
  element system
  element application
  element component
  element controller
  element microservice
  element queue
  element restapi
  element graphqlMutation
  element repository
  element database
  element pgTable
}

You’ll learn later that element kinds may have properties and define styles:

specification {
  element queue {
    title 'Kafka'
    description 'Kafka queue'
    technology 'kafka topic'
    notation 'Kafka Topic'
    style {
      shape queue
    }
  }
}

Relationship

Relationship kinds may define tags, properties (title, description, technology, notation, links) and visual styles:

specification {
  relationship async {
    #tcp
    title 'Asynchronous'
    description 'Communication over a message broker'
    technology 'Kafka'
    notation 'Async'
    link https://example.com/async
    multiple true
    line dotted
    color amber
  }
  relationship subscribes
  relationship is-downstream-of

  tag tcp
}

These properties are inherited by every relationship of that kind, unless the relationship overrides them (tags are merged):

model {
  // inherits the title and style defined for the 'async' kind
  ui .async backend

  // overrides the title, keeps the inherited style
  ui .async db 'reads from'
}

Tag

Tags can be used to mark, group, or filter elements/relationships/views, or to add additional semantics, like #deprecated, #epic-123, or #team2.

specification {
  tag deprecated
  tag epic-123
  tag team2
}

You can assign colors:

specification {
  tag deprecated {
    color #FF0000 // or `rgb(255 0 0)` see below
  }
}

You can add tags to element kinds:

specification {
  // Now every kafka-topic will be marked with the infra and data-lake tags
  element kafka-topic {
    #infra #data-lake
  }
  tag infra
  tag data-lake
}

Color

Custom colors can be defined to extend built-in themes. Once defined in the specification, they can be used alongside the theme colors.

specification {
  color custom-color1 #F00
  color custom-color2 #AABBCC
  color custom-color3 rgb(255, 0, 0)
  color custom-color4 rgb(100 150 200)
  color custom-color5 rgba(44, 8, 128, 0.9)
  color custom-color6 rgba(255, 200, 100, 50%)

  element person {
    style {
      color custom-color1
    }
  }
}