{ "uuid": [ { "value": "2d05cfa9-d5cf-41df-ba50-2c55b776f1f5" } ], "langcode": [ { "value": "en" } ], "type": [ { "target_id": "daily_email", "target_type": "node_type", "target_uuid": "8bde1f2f-eef9-4f2d-ae9c-96921f8193d7" } ], "revision_timestamp": [ { "value": "2025-05-11T09:00:08+00:00" } ], "revision_uid": [ { "target_type": "user", "target_uuid": "b8966985-d4b2-42a7-a319-2e94ccfbb849" } ], "revision_log": [], "status": [ { "value": true } ], "uid": [ { "target_type": "user", "target_uuid": "b8966985-d4b2-42a7-a319-2e94ccfbb849" } ], "title": [ { "value": "Mermaid - markdown for charts" } ], "created": [ { "value": "2024-08-18T00:00:00+00:00" } ], "changed": [ { "value": "2025-05-11T09:00:08+00:00" } ], "promote": [ { "value": false } ], "sticky": [ { "value": false } ], "default_langcode": [ { "value": true } ], "revision_translation_affected": [ { "value": true } ], "path": [ { "alias": "\/daily\/2024\/08\/18\/mermaid-markdown-for-charts", "langcode": "en" } ], "body": [ { "value": "\n

Whilst mentoring at the School of Code Hackathon<\/a>, something the team and I discussed was documentation and documenting any decisions we made about the approaches they were taking, the techologies to use, etc.<\/p>\n\n

We kept it simple by adding this to a README file, but I also mentioned ADRs and technical decision documents<\/a> and how they can be written in Markdown and stored alongside the code in the same repository.<\/p>\n\n

Another approach to documentation that I like is to create diagrams and flow charts.<\/p>\n\n

I've used various tools to do this, but recently, I've started to use Mermaid<\/a>, which is a Markdown-like syntax to generate charts and diagrams.<\/p>\n\n

Here's the thing<\/h2>\n\n

There are online tools to do this, but there's also mmdc<\/code> command-line tool that generates diagrams locally.<\/p>\n\n

This means that I can easily generate diagrams and store in the codebase too, and have them version-controlled so I can see the history as they evolve during the project.<\/p>\n\n

Want an example?<\/h2>\n\n

Here's one I did for the Build Configs tool<\/a>, which I recently open-sourced, and that GitHub renders by default (you can click the 'Code' tab to see the code for the chart).<\/p>\n\n ", "format": "full_html", "processed": "\n

Whilst mentoring at the School of Code Hackathon<\/a>, something the team and I discussed was documentation and documenting any decisions we made about the approaches they were taking, the techologies to use, etc.<\/p>\n\n

We kept it simple by adding this to a README file, but I also mentioned ADRs and technical decision documents<\/a> and how they can be written in Markdown and stored alongside the code in the same repository.<\/p>\n\n

Another approach to documentation that I like is to create diagrams and flow charts.<\/p>\n\n

I've used various tools to do this, but recently, I've started to use Mermaid<\/a>, which is a Markdown-like syntax to generate charts and diagrams.<\/p>\n\n

Here's the thing<\/h2>\n\n

There are online tools to do this, but there's also mmdc<\/code> command-line tool that generates diagrams locally.<\/p>\n\n

This means that I can easily generate diagrams and store in the codebase too, and have them version-controlled so I can see the history as they evolve during the project.<\/p>\n\n

Want an example?<\/h2>\n\n

Here's one I did for the Build Configs tool<\/a>, which I recently open-sourced, and that GitHub renders by default (you can click the 'Code' tab to see the code for the chart).<\/p>\n\n ", "summary": null } ] }