Mermaid diagrams

mermaid converts a Mermaid definition into editable Excalidraw shapes and arrows, as the editor's Mermaid import does, and saves it as a scene or renders it. Diagrams are laid out by Pele. It runs locally with the same browser as render, no API key needed. The browser is needed for scenes too: it measures the text so shapes fit their labels.

excalidraw mermaid flow.mmd --out flow.excalidraw
excalidraw mermaid flow.mmd --out flow.svg --elbow
echo "graph LR; A-->B" | excalidraw mermaid - --out - > flow.excalidraw

# Put the result in your workspace
excalidraw mermaid flow.mmd --out flow.excalidraw
excalidraw scenes create --name "Flow" --collection-id <collectionId> --file flow.excalidraw

• The format follows the --out extension (.excalidraw, .json, .png, .svg) or --format. Other extensions get an Excalidraw scene. With --out -, stdout carries only the scene JSON, PNG bytes or SVG markup.
• Flowcharts (including swimlane-beta), sequence, class, ER and state diagrams, Gantt charts, quadrant charts and timelines become editable elements. Other types, such as pie charts, become one image.
• --elbow draws flowchart edges and state transitions as elbow arrows. --font-size sets the text size (default 20).
• The render image options, such as --scale and --theme, apply to PNG and SVG output.
• A syntax error fails the command with the line and column to fix.
• Labels use the same fonts as render, including the CJK font download; see CJK fonts.