arkit

🇸🇪arkitektur

Visualises JavaScript, TypeScript and Flow codebases as meaningful and committable architecture diagrams

• Associates source files with configured architectural components
• Renders grouped components and dependency graph including Node.js modules
• Supports JavaScript, TypeScript and Flow source code and Vue/Nuxt
• Exports codebase architecture visualisation as SVG, PNG or Plant UML diagram
• Integrates into development flow, so your CI, VCS, README and PRs are happy

Usage

# Run arkit straight away 
npx arkit
 
# Or add it to your project as a dev dependency 
npm install arkit --save-dev
yarn add arkit --dev

# Run arkit against your source folder and save result as SVG 
npx arkit src/ -o arkit.svg
 
# You can also specify source files to start from and output format 
npx arkit -f src/main.js -o puml
 
# And get some more with debugging and file exclusions 
LEVEL=info npx arkit -e "node_modules,test,dist,coverage" -o puml

⚠️ Arkit is using a web service to convert PlantUML to SVG/PNG. It's hosted at arkit.pro and does not store any data. If you want to use Arkit at work make sure this is fine with your company tools policy.

If your project is huge and first diagrams look messy, it's better to generate them per feature, architectural layer, etc.

Once you satisfied with results, add arkit command to your build script, so it will keep your architecture diagrams up-to-date.

Configuration

Arkit can be configured using basic CLI arguments or advanced JSON, JS module or package.json configuration.

Basic CLI arguments

user@machine:~$ npx arkit --help
arkit [directory]
 
Options:
  -d, --directory  Working directory                              [default: "."]
  -c, --config     Config file path (json or js)         [default: "arkit.json"]
  -o, --output     Output path or type (svg, png or puml) [default: "arkit.svg"]
  -f, --first      File patterns to be first in the graph               [string]
  -e, --exclude    File patterns to exclude from the graph
        [default: "test,tests,dist,coverage,**/*.test.*,**/*.spec.*,**/*.min.*"]
  -h, --help       Show help                                           [boolean]
  -v, --version    Show version number                                 [boolean]

Advanced arkit.json with JSON schema for autocomplete and validation

{
  "$schema": "https://arkit.pro/schema.json",
  "excludePatterns": ["test/**", "tests/**", "**/*.test.*", "**/*.spec.*"],
  "components": [
    {
      "type": "Dependency",
      "patterns": ["node_modules/*"]
    },
    {
      "type": "Component",
      "patterns": ["**/*.ts", "**/*.tsx"]
    }
  ],
  "output": [
    {
      "path": "arkit.svg",
      "groups": [
        {
          "first": true,
          "components": ["Component"]
        },
        {
          "type": "Dependencies",
          "components": ["Dependency"]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

See more possible JSON configuration options in the examples below

Real-world examples

Express.js using npx arkit

Arkit itself using npx arkit and config in package.json

ReactDOM using npx arkit and config in arkit.json

Vue/Nuxt TodoMVC using yarn arkit -o arkit.svg

Contribution

The tool is under active development, so please feel free to contribute with suggestions and pull requests. Your feedback is priceless.

Relevant projects

• Dependency cruiser validates and visualizes dependencies
• Madge generates a visual graph of module dependencies
• dependo visualizes CommonJS, AMD, or ES6 module dependencies
• JSCity visualizes JavaScript source code as navigable 3D cities
• colony in-browser graphs representing the links between your Node.js code and its dependencies
• TsUML generates UML diagrams from TypeScript source code

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