dfd

Turn condensed text into data-flow diagrams (SVG/PNG).

That picture is this text (examples/original.dfd):

[Start process]
> foo
[Continue running]
> foo
[Change something that doesn't work]
    > data
    < result
    |Somethnigs|
> foo bar
[Blah blah]
> decision
[Revert]
> something
[Store data in database]
    > something
    |Database|
> thing2
[Finish]

rendered with:

dfd --max-width 1100 examples/original.dfd -o examples/original.png

Other ways to run it:

dfd flow.dfd -o flow.svg
dfd flow.dfd              # writes flow.svg next to the input
cat flow.dfd | dfd > flow.svg

Syntax

• [Text] — process box; document order is the flow
• > label / < label — arrows, label optional; before a process it is the flow arrow into it, before a |store| line it is that store's send (>) / return (<) arrow
• |Text| — datastore (two horizontal lines) attached to the nearest preceding process
• # — comment; blank lines and indentation are cosmetic
• \], \|, \\ — literal brackets in names
• line breaks: keep a [bracket open across lines, or continue an arrow label on the next line — each source line renders as one line

Layout is automatic: boxes snake left-to-right then right-to-left across rows, datastores sit above or below their process, long titles wrap.

Flags

-o out.svg|.png   output file; format from extension; "-" = stdout
--format svg|png  override format detection
--box WxH         box size (default 160x60)
--max-width N     target canvas width for row wrapping (default 1000)
--per-row N       fixed boxes per row (overrides --max-width)
--font-size N     label font size (default 13)
--scale N         PNG resolution multiplier (default 2)

Full syntax, error catalogue, and rendering rules: docs/superpowers/specs/2026-07-23-text-to-dfd-design.md. The example above is also checked in as examples/original.svg.

Develop

go test ./...                                # all tests
go test ./cmd/dfd -run TestScript -update    # reseed txtar fixtures after an
                                             # intentional rendering change

Acceptance tests live in cmd/dfd/testdata/script/*.txtar (testscript); each inlines a .dfd source and the expected SVG.