d2

D2 is a modern diagram scripting language that turns text to diagrams.

terrastruct
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Table of Contents

What does D2 look like?

vars: {
  d2-config: {
    layout-engine: elk
    # Terminal theme code
    theme-id: 300
  }
}
network: {
  cell tower: {
    satellites: {
      shape: stored_data
      style.multiple: true
    }

    transmitter

    satellites -> transmitter: send
    satellites -> transmitter: send
    satellites -> transmitter: send
  }

  online portal: {
    ui: {shape: hexagon}
  }

  data processor: {
    storage: {
      shape: cylinder
      style.multiple: true
    }
  }

  cell tower.transmitter -> data processor.storage: phone logs
}

user: {
  shape: person
  width: 130
}

user -> network.cell tower: make call
user -> network.online portal.ui: access {
  style.stroke-dash: 3
}

api server -> network.online portal.ui: display
api server -> logs: persist
logs: {shape: page; style.multiple: true}

network.data processor -> api server

D2 render example

Open in playground

For more examples, see ./docs/examples.

Quickstart

The most convenient way to use D2 is to just run it as a CLI executable to
produce SVGs from .d2 files.

# First, install D2
curl -fsSL https://d2lang.com/install.sh | sh -s --

echo 'x -> y -> z' > in.d2
d2 --watch in.d2 out.svg

A browser window will open with out.svg and live-reload on changes to in.d2.

Install

The easiest way to install is with our install script:

curl -fsSL https://d2lang.com/install.sh | sh -s --

You can run the install script with --dry-run to see the commands that will be used
to install without executing them.

Or if you have Go installed you can install from source though you won’t get the manpage:

go install oss.terrastruct.com/d2@latest

You can also install a release from source which will include manpages.
See ./docs/INSTALL.md#source-release.

To uninstall with the install script:

curl -fsSL https://d2lang.com/install.sh | sh -s -- --uninstall

For detailed installation docs, see ./docs/INSTALL.md.
We demonstrate alternative methods and examples for each OS.

As well, the functioning of the install script is described in detail to alleviate any
concern of its use. We recommend using your OS’s package manager directly instead for
improved security but the install script is by no means insecure.

D2 as a library

In addition to being a runnable CLI tool, D2 can also be used to produce diagrams from
Go programs.

For examples, see ./docs/examples/lib. This blog
post also demos a
complete, runnable example of using D2 as a library for a real-world use case.

Themes

D2 includes a variety of official themes to style your diagrams beautifully right out of
the box. See ./d2themes to browse the available themes and make or
contribute your own creation.

Fonts

D2 ships with “Source Sans Pro” as the font in renders. If you wish to use a different
one, please see ./d2renderers/d2fonts.

Export file types

D2 currently supports SVG, PNG and PDF exports. More coming soon.

Language tooling

D2 is designed with language tooling in mind. D2’s parser can parse multiple errors from a
broken program, has an autoformatter, syntax highlighting, and we have plans for LSP’s and
more. Good language tooling is necessary for creating and maintaining large diagrams.

The extensions for VSCode and Vim can be found in the Related section.

Plugins

D2 is designed to be extensible and composable. The plugin system allows you to
change out layout engines and customize the rendering pipeline. Plugins can either be
bundled with the build or separately installed as a standalone binary.

Layout engines:

  • dagre (default, bundled): A fast, directed graph
    layout engine that produces layered/hierarchical layouts. Based on Graphviz’s DOT
    algorithm.
  • ELK (bundled): A directed graph layout engine
    particularly suited for node-link diagrams with an inherent direction and ports.
  • TALA (binary): Novel layout engine designed
    specifically for software architecture diagrams. Requires separate install, visit the
    Github page for more.

D2 intends to integrate with a variety of layout engines, e.g. dot, as well as
single-purpose layout types like sequence diagrams. You can choose whichever layout engine
you like and works best for the diagram you’re making.

Comparison

For a comparison against other popular text-to-diagram tools, see
https://text-to-diagram.com.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! See ./docs/CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

Open sourced under the Mozilla Public License 2.0. See ./LICENSE.txt.

Related

We are constantly working on new plugins, integrations, extensions. Contributions are
welcome in any official or community plugins. If you have somewhere in your workflow that
you want to use D2, feel free to open a discussion. We have limited bandwidth and usually
choose the most high-demand ones to work on. If you make something cool with D2 yourself,
let us know and we’ll be happy to include it here!

Official plugins

Community plugins

Misc

FAQ

  • Does D2 collect telemetry?
    • No, D2 does not use an internet connection after installation, except to check for
      version updates from Github periodically.
  • Does D2 need a browser to run?
    • No, D2 can run entirely server-side.
  • What’s coming in the next release?
  • I have a question or need help.
    • The best way to get help is to ask on D2 Discord
  • I have a feature request, proposal, or bug report.
    • Please open up a Github Issue.
  • I have a private inquiry.

Notable open-source projects documenting with D2

Do you have or see an open-source project with .d2 files? Please submit a PR adding to
this selected list of featured projects using D2.