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A Unicode canvas for humans and AI.

CharDesk, formerly ASCII Canvas, is an editable Unicode grid for drawing diagrams, interfaces, and ideas. What you create stays visual for people and readable as text for language models.

People understand layout at a glance. Language models work naturally with token sequences. Screenshots bridge that gap, but they also carry pixel noise, consume visual context, and are difficult to revise precisely across multiple turns.

CharDesk uses text itself as the visual medium. A diagram remains a diagram when you look at it, yet it can still be copied, searched, versioned, and given directly to an AI without becoming an opaque image.

┌──────────────┐       ┌──────────────┐
│ Human intent │──────>│ Shared canvas│
└──────────────┘       └──────┬───────┘
                              │
                       ┌──────▼───────┐
                       │ AI-readable  │
                       │ text         │
                       └──────────────┘

Use CharDesk for:

• flowcharts, architecture diagrams, and system maps;
• interface wireframes and terminal-style mockups;
• notes where spatial relationships matter;
• Unicode art, icons, tables, and lightweight data views;
• visual context that can move between a conversation, document, issue, or source file.

No drawing skill is required. Start with shapes and templates, arrange them visually, then copy the result as text whenever you need it elsewhere.

Draw directly on an infinite character grid. Place text and symbols anywhere, paint with Unicode characters, select regions, and reshape ideas without leaving the canvas.

Build with editable text, boxes, backgrounds, dividers, lines, and arrows. Move and resize parts without redrawing the whole scene, or begin with reusable interface components and complete templates.

Arrange a deck as editable text pages, or ask an Agent to generate a .chardesk document and continue editing it visually. See the Slides file structure.

CharDesk keeps visual work in a form that fits naturally into text conversations:

1. Compose or refine an idea visually.
2. Copy it as plain text or ANSI-styled text.
3. Give the compact representation to an AI for analysis or revision.
4. Paste text back into the canvas and continue visually.

The application does not require a built-in AI provider. The artifact itself is the interface: portable text that both sides can inspect.

CharDesk brings together Unicode symbols, CJK characters, emoji, box drawing, Nerd Font glyphs, and color on a consistent grid. Its visual language can express structure and emphasis while remaining selectable and editable.

Open CharDesk and start creating →

CharDesk output can also be consumed outside the editor. Use the chardesk CLI to check source or render it as PNG and materialized text, @chardesk/protocol for the text interchange format, @chardesk/viewer for framework-independent web rendering, and @chardesk/fonts for compatible glyph assets. CharGraph presents structured source as portable Unicode text. Each package owns its installation and API documentation.

Thanks to LINUX DO.

CharDesk is open source under the MIT License.