Archify Online: Interactive Diagrams in Your Browser, No Agent Needed
You see the screenshots everywhere: architecture maps that light up a request path on click, fade everything else back, and let you walk a system layer by layer. They come from Archify — the open-source diagram project on GitHub (tt-a1i/archify), MIT-licensed — which has collected more than 65,000 stars since April 2026 (as of September 2026). Then you open the repository and hit the catch:…
Archify is an open-source project on GitHub that has gained over 65,000 stars since its inception in April 2026. However, it is not a website, but rather an agent skill and a command-line interface (CLI) meant to be used within coding tools like Claude Code, Codex, or similar. This design allows it to be easily integrated into workflows where engineers already describe systems using code.
Despite most people searching for "Archify" looking for interactive map diagrams, the project's official design does not provide an online version. Instead, the README specifies that hosted sharing and WYSIWYG editing are intentionally out of scope, making the GitHub repository a documentation landing page with downloadable example artifacts.
The project's core is a compile step for system diagrams, transforming a system description into a typed JSON intermediate representation. This JSON is then deterministically compiled into self-contained HTML/SVG files, ensuring consistent layout, routing, and label spacing without relying on guesses. Archify can process various system descriptions, including Mermaid flowcharts, Docker Compose files, Terraform scripts, Kubernetes configurations, or SQL queries.
When using the browser port of the engine, the deterministic layer, which is crucial for producing high-quality output, remains unchanged. This means that the same system description will render identically in the CLI and browser versions, providing a consistent user experience. However, there are notable differences in the browser port.
The upstream version of Archify assumes the presence of an agent to produce the JSON specification. In contrast, the browser port handles this step itself by converting user input into the typed specification. This substitution introduces practical differences such as the types of inputs accepted and the economics of using the service.
For instance, the browser port is free for the first 10 maps and uses credits thereafter, while the CLI remains fully free under its MIT license. Additionally, the browser port accepts inputs like Mermaid diagrams, Docker Compose files, Terraform scripts, Kubernetes configurations, or SQL queries as direct sources for generating interactive maps.
This makes it more accessible for users who may not be familiar with the JSON specification or agent-based workflows.
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