Your systems, drawn by you.
Point it at the repositories you keep. Each one can say what it is in a short
TOPOLOGY.md; topology reads them, sorts what they say by
where, what, how and who, and draws it. You move
the shapes. The drawing is yours.
Zero Sharing
Everything stays in this browser: settings, drawings, choices. Nothing is sent anywhere until you add an address yourself, and you can take it all away as a file at any time.
Start now, share nothingConnect an API
Your own server, ours, or anyone's that speaks the graph API. The address lives in your browser; the server only sees what you ask it for.
Connect and drawWhat it is
A drawing app (TopoForge, a single-file network and diagram designer) with a small
server beside it. The server keeps a list of git repositories, reads the
TOPOLOGY.md files in them, and keeps what it learns as small files you can
read with ls and cat. The app asks it for a graph and lays the
graph out as shapes.
A drawing can be read three ways. It describes something you want to exist. Drawn over something that already exists, it proposes a change, and can hand you that change as a prompt to take anywhere. Where a server allows it and has the tools, pressing go makes the change. Every server starts with go switched off.
Private parts of a TOPOLOGY.md stay hidden unless the component says show,
or you do, and a server sends none at all until its operator allows it. You can set that per container or for everything, and the app always tells you
which setting decided.
Download
Everything below is built by one file, RECIPE.org, which is itself in every package, so any copy can rebuild the rest.
| Package | What you get |
|---|---|
topology-www | Just this site and the app, as files under /usr/share/topology/www. Nothing runs. |
topology-perl | Perl 5.44.0, built for topology, with its CPAN modules inside, under /opt/topology/perl. Leaves your system perl alone. |
topology | The command, the graph API service, and the settings in /etc/topology. |
Browse: Debian packages · source tarballs · SHA256SUMS · the CPAN sources we vendor
sudo apt install ./topology-www_*.deb # files only sudo apt install ./topology*.deb # all of it
Switch things off
New features arrive switched on. Every one can be switched off in
/etc/topology/topology.conf, and one line takes the whole thing back to just
the files of this site:
ceiling = spa # spa | web | api | repos | write
| Ceiling | What runs |
|---|---|
spa | Nothing. The app is on disk where topology where says. |
web | The site and downloads, served by your web server. |
api | The graph API, read-only. |
repos | It fetches the repositories you list, with the credentials you name. |
write | Go is possible. Off by default, even under this ceiling. |
Make it yours
Choose how it looks (classic, console, cards) and how a drawing is read (topology, flowchart, BPMN, BPMN+) in the app's settings. Fork a drawing, keep both, compare.
Or start your own version. This one began from a single request, kept word for word with everything we read beside it, so someone else can begin from the same place and see where their setup takes it: how to start your own.
The words it uses (place, part, path, person; describe, propose, effect) are defined in one file, pillars.json, which the app and the server both read. Change a word there and both change.