Archy turns a simple JSON file into a live, interactive architecture diagram — inside VS Code, alongside your code. No accounts. No cloud sync. No Figma. Just a .archy file in your repo.
ext install nischalon10.archy
{ "version": "2", "nodes": [ { "id": "orders-api", "type": "service", "name": "Orders API" }, { "id": "order-created", "type": "kafka-topic", "name": "order-created" }, { "id": "inventory-service", "type": "service", "name": "Inventory" }, { "id": "orders-db", "type": "database", "name": "Orders DB" } ], "edges": [ { "id": "e1", "from": "orders-api", "to": "order-created", "type": "publishes" }, { "id": "e2", "from": "inventory-service", "to": "order-created", "type": "consumes" }, { "id": "e3", "from": "orders-api", "to": "orders-db", "type": "writes" } ] }
Why Archy
A .archy file is plain JSON. It diffs, reviews, and merges like any other source file. Architecture changes become PR comments.
VS Code opens .archy files as diagrams automatically. The diagram is always one click away from the code it describes.
A valid diagram is 6 lines of JSON. Write one from scratch in two minutes. No GUI required, no import/export friction.
Every edge has a semantic type — calls, publishes, consumes, writes. Diagrams answer "what does this do?" not just "what connects to what?"
Node Types
Services, topics, databases, frontends, actors — all modeled the same way. One primitive, twelve flavors. New architectural concepts become new entries in the registry, not new schemas.
Install in seconds from the VS Code Marketplace or the command line.