Autodraw

Open source diagram editor for people, teams, and agents — one small JSON format (.adraw), a fast canvas, and tools so automation and humans stay in sync.

Website: autodraw.ink — free web canvas at /app, format spec at /spec, read-only share links at /v?d=….

Goal

Architecture and flow diagrams should be easy to sketch, hand off, and evolve. Autodraw keeps the loop simple: draw or generate a .adraw file, commit or share it, open it in the browser or native app, and let CLI / MCP do the same operations your editor does — so agents and CI can maintain diagrams next to code.

Quick demo

From the repo root after pnpm install, build the CLI once (pnpm build or pnpm --filter @maelstromlab/autodraw build), then:

npx -y @maelstromlab/autodraw init ./demo.adraw
npx -y @maelstromlab/autodraw add node ./demo.adraw --text "API" --x 200 --y 200
npx -y @maelstromlab/autodraw add node ./demo.adraw --text "Worker" --x 420 --y 220
npx -y @maelstromlab/autodraw add edge ./demo.adraw --from <first-id> --to <second-id> --preset 1
npx -y @maelstromlab/autodraw export ./demo.adraw --format svg --output ./demo.svg

Open autodraw.ink/app and drag in demo.adraw, or paste a share payload from the spec page. Same format everywhere.

Getting started

git clone https://github.com/biering/autodraw.git
cd autodraw
pnpm install

What you want	Command
Web marketing + editor (Astro)	pnpm --filter web dev
Desktop UI in browser (Vite, no Rust)	pnpm dev
Full desktop (Tauri + Rust)	pnpm dev:tauri
All package builds	pnpm build
Tests	pnpm -r test

The desktop app needs Rust and Tauri 2 prerequisites for native shells. If cargo is missing from PATH, try pnpm dev:tauri (it prepends ~/.cargo/bin when present).

Let your agent draw

1. .adraw v1 — UTF-8 JSON; validated in @autodraw/core. Full field list: autodraw.ink/spec.
2. CLI — @maelstromlab/autodraw: npx -y @maelstromlab/autodraw … (or pnpm exec autodraw … when developing from this repo).
3. MCP + API — hosted on autodraw.ink: remote MCP at /api/mcp and REST /api/diagrams (see apps/web/README.md). The CLI adds autodraw cloud upload|pull|push|share for quick round-trips.

Agents can emit JSON that matches the spec, write .adraw files in-repo, or call CLI/MCP in CI. Share links (/v?d=…, /app?d=…) use gzip + base64url encoding — see the spec page for details.

Monorepo

Package	Role
apps/core	Schema (Zod), node styles, routing, renderSVG()
apps/editor	React Flow editor (web + desktop)
apps/app	Tauri 2 shell, licensing, native export
apps/web	Astro site + public /app canvas
apps/cli	oclif CLI for scripts and agents (@maelstromlab/autodraw on npm)

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Open an issue to discuss larger changes; small fixes and docs can go straight to a PR.

• Match existing style and keep diffs focused.
• pnpm build and pnpm -r test should pass where relevant.
• Formatting: pnpm format / Biome (biome.json at repo root).

Publishing (maintainers)

@maelstromlab/autodraw (npm)

Releases are driven by release-please (manifest mode). On each push to main, .github/workflows/cli-release.yaml runs release-please; it opens or updates a release PR when there are releasable commits under apps/cli/**. Merging that PR creates a Git tag and triggers a publish of @maelstromlab/autodraw to npm (bundles @autodraw/core into the CLI; core does not need to be on npm).

Conventional commits: release-please only considers changes in apps/cli/**. If you ship CLI behavior via apps/core/** only, add a companion commit scoped for the CLI (e.g. fix(cli): bump bundled core) so the release PR picks up the bump.

Configure the NPM_TOKEN secret on the repo. Branch protection must allow GitHub Actions to push release commits / open PRs, or supply a PAT.

Not on npm (yet)

@autodraw/core is workspace-only (private: true). Only @maelstromlab/autodraw is released to npm. Hosted MCP/API live on the web Worker (apps/web); configure the DIAGRAMS R2 binding in apps/web/wrangler.jsonc before PUT/POST work in production.

Notes

• CLI PDF export uses a raster page inside PDF for portability; the desktop app can produce vector PDF via Rust.
• Keyboard in the webview: undo/redo Cmd/Ctrl+Z / Cmd+Shift+Z; file shortcuts match the native menu when running in Tauri.