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Structurizr Site Generatr

A static site generator for C4 architecture models created with Structrizr DSL. See Background for the story behind this tool.

Click here to see an example of a generated site based on the Big Bank plc example from https://structurizr.com. This site is generated from the example workspace in this repository.

Features

  • Generate a static HTML site, based on a Structurizr DSL workspace.
  • Generates diagrams in SVG, PNG and PlantUML format, which can be viewed and downloaded from the generated site.
  • Easy browsing through the site by clicking on software system and container elements in the diagrams. Note that external software systems are excluded from the menu. A software system is considered external when it lives outside the (deprecated) enterprise boundary or when it contains a specific tag, see Customizing the generated website.
  • Start a development server which generates a site, serves it and updates the site automatically whenever a file that's part of the Structurizr workspace changes.
  • Include documentation (in Markdown or AsciiDoc format) in the generated site. Both workspace level documentation and software system level documentation are included in the site.
  • Include ADR's in the generated site. Again, both workspace level ADR's and software system level ADR's are included in the site.
  • Include static assets in the generated site, which can be used in ADR's and documentation.
  • Generate a site from a Structurizr DSL model in a Git repository. Supports multiple branches, which makes it possible to for example maintain an actual state in master and one or more future states in feature branches. The generated site includes diagrams for all valid configured or detected branches.
  • Include a version number in the generated site.

Getting Started

To get started with the Structurizr Site Generatr, you can either:

  • Install it to your local machine (recommended for the best experience), or
  • Execute it on your local machine via a container (requires Docker)

Please note: The intended use of the Docker image is to generate a site from a CI pipeline. Using it for model development is possible, but not a usage scenario that's actively supported.

Installation using Homebrew - Recommended

As this approach relies on Homebrew, ensure this is already installed. For Windows and other operating systems not supported by Homebrew, please use the Docker approach instead.

To install Structurizr Site Generatr execute the following commands in your terminal:

brew tap avisi-cloud/tools
brew install structurizr-site-generatr

structurizr-site-generatr --help

Periodically, you would have to update your local installation to take advantage of any new Structurizr Site Generatr releases.

Manual installation

If using Homebrew is not an option for you, it's also possible to install Structurizr Site Generatr manually. This can be done as follows:

  • Consult the Structurizr Site Generatr releases and choose the version you wish to use
  • Download the .tar.gz or .zip distribution
  • Extract the archive using your favourite tool
  • For ease of use, it's recommended to add Structurizr Site Generatr's bin directory to your PATH

Docker

Though local installation is recommended for development where possible, Structurizr Site Generatr is also a packaged as a Docker image. Therefore, to use this approach, ensure Docker is already installed. Additionally, for Windows 10+ users, you may want to take advantage of WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux). Both Docker and WSL2 are topics too vast to repeat here, so you are invited to study these as prerequisite learning for this approach.

Then to download our packaged image, consider the Structurizr Site Generatr releases and choose the version you wish to use. Then, in your terminal, execute the following:

docker pull ghcr.io/avisi-cloud/structurizr-site-generatr

Once downloaded, you can execute Structurizr Site Generatr via a temporary Docker container by executing the following in your terminal:

docker run -it --rm ghcr.io/avisi-cloud/structurizr-site-generatr --help

[Optional] Verify the Structurizr Site Generatr image with CoSign

cat cosign.pub
-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
MFkwEwYHKoZIzj0CAQYIKoZIzj0DAQcDQgAEzezKl0vAWSHosQ0JLEsDzNBd2nGm
08KqX+imYqq2avlbH+ehprJFMqKK0/I/bY0q5W9hQC8SLzTRJ9Q5dB9UiQ==
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----
cosign verify --key cosign.pub ghcr.io/avisi-cloud/structurizr-site-generatr

Or by using the Github repo url:

 cosign verify --key https://github.com/avisi-cloud/structurizr-site-generatr ghcr.io/avisi-cloud/structurizr-site-generatr

Usage

These examples use the example workspace in this repository.

Once installed, Structurizr Site Generatr is operated via your terminal by issuing commands. Each command is explained here:

Help

To learn about available commands, or parameters for individual commands, call Structurizr Site Generatr with the --help argument.

installed> structurizr-site-generatr --help

   docker> docker run -it --rm ghcr.io/avisi-cloud/structurizr-site-generatr --help

Usage: structurizr-site-generatr options_list
Subcommands:
    serve - Start a development server
    generate-site - Generate a site for the selected workspace.
    version - Print version information

Options:
    --help, -h -> Usage info

Version

To query the version of Structurizr Site Generatr installed / used.

installed> structurizr-site-generatr version

   docker> docker run -it --rm ghcr.io/avisi-cloud/structurizr-site-generatr version

Structurizr Site Generatr v1.1.3

Generate a website

From a C4 Workspace

This is the primary use case of Structurizr Site Generatr -- to generate a website from a C4 Workspace.

installed> structurizr-site-generatr generate-site --workspace-file workspace.dsl --assets-dir assets

   docker> docker run -it --rm -v c:/projects/c4:/var/model ghcr.io/avisi-cloud/structurizr-site-generatr generate-site --workspace-file workspace.dsl --assets-dir assets

Here, the --workspace-file or -w parameter specifies the input C4 Workspace DSL file to the generate-site command. The --assets-dir or -a parameter is not required, but usually needed as well. Additional parameters that affect website generation can be reviewed using the --help operator.

By default, the generated website will be placed in ./build, which is overwritten if it already exisits.

For those taking the Docker approach

When using the Docker approach, the local file system must be made available to the temporary Structurizr Site Generatr container via a Docker file system volume mount. This is achieved by specifying the -v parameter with a linux-like absolute path to the folder containing the .dsl file specified via -w. See how C:\Projects\C4 has become -v c:/projects/c4:/var/model in the above example?

Generate a website from a Git repository

Instead of relying on local .dsl files only, the generate-site command can also retrieve input files from a Git repository as follows. This is particularly advantageous for demos, documentation, or CI/CD pipelines.

To explicitly name the branches that you want to build sites from you can use the --branches option.

structurizr-site-generatr generate-site
    --git-url https://github.com/avisi-cloud/structurizr-site-generatr.git
    --workspace-file docs/example/workspace.dsl
    --assets-dir docs/example/assets
    --branches main,future,old
    --default-branch main

or you can choose to build all branches that are found in the repository and exclude specific ones by using the --all-branches and --exclude-branches options.

structurizr-site-generatr generate-site
    --git-url https://github.com/avisi-cloud/structurizr-site-generatr.git
    --workspace-file docs/example/workspace.dsl
    --assets-dir docs/example/assets
    --all-branches
    --exclude-branches gh-pages
    --default-branch main

Both the --branches and --exclude-branches options are comma separated lists and can contain multiple branch names.

Start a development web server around the generated website

To aid composition of C4 Workspace DSL files, the serve command will generate a website from the input .dsl specified with -w and start a web server to view it. Default port for the web server is 8080. A different port for the web server can be specified with -p PORT. Additional parameters that affect website generation and the development web server can be reviewed using the --help operator.

installed> structurizr-site-generatr serve -w workspace.dsl

   docker> docker run -it --rm -v c:/projects/c4:/var/model -p 8080:8080 ghcr.io/avisi-cloud/structurizr-site-generatr serve --workspace-file workspace.dsl --assets-dir assets

By default, a development web server will be started and accessible at http://localhost:8080/ (if available).

For those taking the Docker approach

However, when using the Docker approach, this development web server is within the temporary Structurizr Site Generatr container. So Docker port mapping is needed to expose the container's port 8080 to the host (web browser). In the example above, the -p 8080:8080 argument tells Docker to bind the local machine / host's port 8080 to the container's port 8080.

Customizing the generated website

By default, the site generator uses the C4PlantUmlExporter to generate the diagrams. When using this exporter, all properties available for the C4PlantUMLExporter, e.g. c4plantuml.tags, can be applied and affect the diagrams in the generate site. See also Diagram notation for an overview of supported features and limitations for this exporter.

The look and feel of the generated site can be customized with several additional view properties in the C4 architecture model:

Property name Description Default Example
generatr.style.colors.primary Primary site color, used for header bar background and active menu background. #333333 #485fc7
generatr.style.colors.secondary Secondary site color, used for font color in header bar and for active menu. #cccccc #ffffff
generatr.style.faviconPath Site logo location relative to the configured assets folder. When configured, the logo image will be place on the left side in the header bar. This requires the --assets-dir switch when generating the site and the corresponding file to be available in the assets folder. site/favicon.ico
generatr.style.logoPath Site favicon location relative to the configured assets folder. When configured, the favicon will be set for all generated pages. This requires the --assets-dir switch when generating the site and the corresponding file to be available in the assets folder. site/logo.png
generatr.style.customStylesheet URL to hosted custom stylesheet or path to custom stylesheet file (location relative to the configured assets folder). When configured this css file will be loaded for all pages. When using a path to a file the --assets-dir switch must be used when generating the site and the corresponding file is available in the assets folder. site/custom.css or 'https://uri.example/custom.css
generatr.search.language Indexing/stemming language for the search index. See Lunr language support en nl
generatr.markdown.flexmark.extensions Additional extensions to the markdown generator to add new markdown capabilities. More Details Tables Tables,Admonition
generatr.svglink.target Specifies the link target for element links in the exported svg _top _self
generatr.site.exporter Specifies the UML exporter, can be c4 (uses the C4PlantUMLExporter) or structurizr (uses the StructurizrPlantUMLExporter) c4 structurizr
generatr.site.externalTag Software systems containing this tag will be considered external
generatr.site.nestGroups Will show software systems in the left side navigator in collapsable groups false true
generatr.site.cdn Specifies the CDN base location for fetching NPM packages for browser runtime dependencies. Defaults to jsDelivr, but can be changed to e.g. an on-premise location. https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm https://cdn.my-company/npm
generatr.site.theme Experimental: allows to force a light or dark theme or allows to switch between light and dark mode on the website with browser preference or menu item. Possible values are 'light', 'dark' or 'auto'. Note that the 'structurizr' exporter (see 'generatr.site.exporter' setting) generally works better for the dark theme. light auto

See the included example for usage of some those properties in the C4 architecture model example.

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please refer to CONTRIBUTING.md for more information on how you can help.

Background

At Avisi, we're big fans of the C4 model. We use it in many projects, big and small, to document the architecture of the systems and system landscapes we're working on.

We started out by using PlantUML, combined with the C4 extension. This works well for small systems. However, for larger application landscapes, maintained by multiple development teams, this lead to duplication and inconsistency across diagrams.

To solve this problem, we needed a model based approach. Rather than maintaining separate diagrams and trying to keep them consistent, we needed to have a single model, from which diagrams could be generated. This is why we started using the Structurizr for Java library. About a year later, we migrated our models to Structurizr DSL.

We created custom tooling to generate diagrams and check them in to our Git repository. All diagrams could be seen by navigating to our GitLab repository. This is less than ideal, because we like to make these diagrams easily accessible to everyone, including our customers. This is why we decided that we needed a way of publishing our models to an easily accessible website.

This tool is the result. It's still a work in progress, but it has already proven to be very useful to us.