Archify JSON IR Schemas

Each typed renderer consumes a JSON intermediate representation (IR) validated against one of the schemas in this folder before any layout work happens.

Files

Every diagram schema requires schema_version, diagram_type, meta (with title and a durable portable output), and its structural arrays — except segments, activations, ERD and class relationships, and cards, which are optional — and sets additionalProperties: false at every level, so unknown fields are rejected rather than silently ignored.

Every meta object also accepts animation: "trace" for opt-in SVG/CSS motion in generated HTML. Omit it, or set "none", for the default static output. It also accepts locale, any well-formed language tag (schema pattern ^[a-z]{2,3}(-[A-Za-z0-9]{2,8})*$). The field selects the fixed Viewer UI, renderer-owned default legend and accessibility copy, document-title suffix, and <html lang> value; it does not translate authored strings. The bundled catalogs enrolled in locales/manifest.json (en, zh-CN, zh-TW, es, ko, ar) are selected by tag, case-insensitively; region and script variants are distinct tags. Any other tag needs a matching translations object (see below) or the renderer falls back to English and discloses it. Omitting locale preserves legacy behavior and resolves to English. Malformed locale tags fail schema validation instead of being guessed or silently rewritten.

meta.translations is an optional per-key override, as data: an object mapping canonical message keys (locales/en.json) to translated strings whose {placeholder} tokens match the English source. Each message resolves as: valid translations value → bundled catalog for locale → English. An unrecognized key or mismatched placeholders never replaces a valid lower-priority message and fails no render; validate/render/deliver report rejected entries and the final resolved coverage to stderr. visual_preset accepts classic (the stable default), signal-flow (luminous motion-forward presentation), blueprint (high-contrast engineering review), or editorial (warm publication-style design review and documentation). Presets change only viewer styling; they do not alter semantic IDs or geometry. Sequence meta additionally accepts column_fit. The default spread applies whether or not meta.viewBox is supplied. Explicit fixed keeps the historical 108px column gap and 86px participant boxes. spread derives column distance and box width from the viewBox, with at least a 16px gutter between participant cards, which turns a wide canvas into column distance and label room rather than empty space on the right. Lane order, IDs, and message semantics are unchanged either way.

meta.views is retired. The schemas still accept the old guided-view shape so existing files keep validating, but renderers ignore it; do not author it.

Legend presentation contract

Every meta object accepts the same optional legend shape without changing the schema version already selected for that renderer:

"legend": {
  "mode": "auto",
  "entries": {
    "security": { "label": "restricted data", "visible": true }
  }
}

mode is auto (the default), all, or hidden. auto includes only kinds present in typed IR; all includes the renderer's full stable catalog; hidden removes the complete legend and takes precedence over entry overrides. Architecture documents that omit an explicit viewBox size that automatic viewBox from the same measured resolved legend footprint used for final SVG layout. Across all renderers, legacy documents that omit meta.legend use a compatibility-safe implicit auto: if the resolved legend cannot fit an explicit authored viewBox without overlap, Archify omits the complete legend instead of turning a previously valid schema-v1 document into a hard failure. Once an author adds meta.legend (including explicit mode: "auto"), the layout is intentional and unfit labels or bands fail with a path-prefixed diagnostic. An entry may set a non-empty, bounded label, boolean visible, or both. visible: false removes a resolved entry and visible: true forces a supported but unused kind into the visual legend. Unknown kinds and properties fail strict validation.

Supported keys are renderer-owned:

Labels are presentation only: they do not rename the stable kind, change nodes/relationships, or create Semantic Lens edge facts. Sequence message and Dataflow flow-variant entries are visual keys. Component/state entries backed by exact compiled node facts receive the interactive Semantic Legend bridge; this includes Dataflow database when a real nodes[].type: "database" fact exists.

Every relationship collection (connections, edges, messages, flows, and transitions) accepts an optional author-controlled id using the shared ID pattern. The renderer keeps its source-order runtime key separately, while the authored ID enables a stable #relation=<id> viewer link that survives array reordering. ID-less documents remain valid and their relationship pins stay local to the current page.

Every semantic node collection (components, nodes, participants, and states) also accepts one optional brand: either a canonical string returned by archify brands --json, or a digest-pinned { "url", "sha256" } object returned by archify brands capture <url> --json. Known IDs and known-brand domains use the bundled vector catalogue. Unknown URLs must be captured in that explicit command before authoring; render and validate never perform an unpinned network capture. Unsafe, unavailable, changed, or unsupported content fails closed with a brand diagnostic. Omitted brand preserves the prior output.

schema_version policy

Workflow supports schema versions 1 and 2. Version 1 remains the fixed-layout compatibility contract; version 2 opts into the readable workflow compiler and can be produced explicitly with archify migrate workflow ... --to-schema 2. Lifecycle accepts only version 3, an automatic main-path layout (see the lifecycle renderer). The other three diagram schemas keep schema_version pinned to 1; they have no schema-version migration command. For any of the five diagram types, repair a legacy missing or nonportable meta.output in the source and run validate. For a workflow v1-to-v2 migration specifically, migrate workflow also accepts --output reports/diagram.html to put that portable value in the separate v2 destination without changing the legacy source.

Workflow also accepts optional semanticChecks. allowedRoots and allowedTerminals close the set of intentional graph sources and sinks; requiredEdges requires exact authored relationships; and requiredPaths requires directed reachability while allowing intermediate nodes. The compiler evaluates these facts before layout and returns typed workflow/* diagnostics. The field is additive and geometry-neutral: omitting it preserves existing workflow behavior and including a satisfied contract does not change SVG or layout-receipt bytes.

A file that validates today must keep validating and rendering within its declared version throughout the 2.x release line. The explicitly reviewed portable-output hardening is the one exception: older v1 documents that omit meta.output must add a portable POSIX-relative .html path (for example, reports/diagram.html); ordinary explicit CLI output arguments do not replace this durable authored value. The workflow-only v1-to-v2 migration command may instead receive that value explicitly as --output reports/diagram.html; it writes the value only to its separate validated destination. Additive viewer, accessibility, and presentation improvements may enhance generated HTML, but they must not reinterpret authored IR or turn a previously valid profile-less v1 file into a new hard layout failure. Breaking IR changes require a new version; additive, backwards-compatible fields do not.

Shared definitions (common.schema.json)

The five diagram schemas reference common.schema.json#/$defs/...:

• id — element identifiers, pattern ^[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9_-]*$
• point — an [x, y] pair of numbers (used by via and labelAt)
• componentType — frontend, backend, database, cloud, security, messagebus, external
• locale — a well-formed renderer locale tag (bundled catalogs are listed in locales/manifest.json; any other tag needs a matching translations object)
• translations — canonical message key → translated string, layered over the bundled catalog for locale, then English
• portableOutputPath — the portable POSIX-relative .html path used by meta.output; see the two output-path boundaries in the delivery contract
• brandMark — one optional built-in brand ID or explicit HTTP(S) site URL
• variant — default, emphasis, security, dashed (sequence messages extend this list locally with return)
• legendMode and legendEntry — the shared strict mode and label/visibility override shapes used by each renderer-owned key map
• guidedViews — the retired meta.views shape, still accepted and ignored
• cards — the summary-card blocks rendered below the SVG

Lifecycle state type is mode-specific (start/active/waiting/...) and stays in lifecycle.schema.json.

The JSON Schema definition is the portable contract's structurally expressible preflight. The shipped generated validator wrapper and CLI additionally enforce byte-based component limits and the complete runtime path contract; consumers that need the same cross-platform acceptance boundary should use that wrapper.

Runtime validation

At development time, scripts/generate-validators.mjs compiles all five schemas with ajv's draft 2020-12 standalone generator using strict: true and allErrors: true. The generated renderers/shared/generated-validators.mjs is committed and shipped with the skill, so runtime validation has no npm or network dependency. renderers/shared/validator.mjs applies the matching standalone validator before the renderer's own layout checks. The shared loader then checks cross-collection facts that JSON Schema cannot express cleanly here: duplicate view IDs, duplicate focus IDs, focus IDs that do not exist in the diagram's semantic collection, and duplicate authored relationship IDs within the mode's relationship collection.

All five modes support opt-in, revision-pinned repository evidence. meta.repository names the repository URL and full commit SHA, with optional provider (github, gitee, or gitlab) and link_mode (web or local-only; see the authoring contract); a node may carry one to three sources with repo-relative POSIX paths, optional line ranges, and optional labels. Sources are authored on the mode's own node collection — Architecture components, Workflow and Data Flow nodes, Sequence participants, Lifecycle states — and the verified payload is keyed by node id. Shape is schema-checked, then the renderer requires --repo-root: the local Git origin must match, and Git must prove the commit, blobs, and requested lines. Verified evidence is embedded outside the canonical SVG for the Semantic Passport and Node Finder; ordinary documents and visual exports carry no repository evidence.

Visual quality and engineering truth

meta.quality_profile and meta.engineering_profile answer different questions. quality_profile is available in all five modes and controls how strictly Archify judges composition. engineering_profile is an optional Architecture-only semantic contract; omitting it preserves the ordinary v1 behavior.

The first engineering profile is deployment-ownership. Enable it only when the user wants a fail-closed deployment review and the source facts are known. It requires every non-external component to name an owner in tag and belong to exactly one region; the document must contain both region and security-group boundaries; every database must be inside a security-group; each security group must contain members from one shared region; and every connection whose region or security-group membership changes must name the real crossing mechanism in label.

The profile validates only authored IR. It does not discover infrastructure, infer owners, or prove that a diagram matches a live environment. If a fact is unknown, leave the profile unset or obtain the fact instead of inventing it.

npm test runs the generator in check mode and fails when the committed validators drift from their schemas.

Error format

Schema violations exit non-zero. Each ajv error is reported on its own line as the instance path — annotated with the nearest enclosing element's id or label — followed by the message and parameters:

workflow schema validation failed:
  /nodes/3 (id/label: "router") must NOT have additional properties {"additionalProperty":"colour"}

Schemas catch shape errors (types, enums, ranges, unknown fields); geometry problems such as overlaps and label collisions are the renderers' job.