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Flowchart

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Flowcharts are the most versatile diagram type in Mermaid, perfect for visualizing processes, decision trees, and system workflows. Mermaid Studio provides the most comprehensive support for flowcharts.

Syntax highlighting integrates directly with IntelliJ’s color scheme system, so diagram colors always match your editor theme.

Flowchart syntax highlighting in Armada Dark theme

Mermaid Studio provides comprehensive support for flowcharts:

  • Syntax highlighting - Color-coded keywords, nodes, edges, and HTML tags in labels
  • Code completion - Suggestions for node shapes, arrow types, keywords, and icons in generalized shapes
  • Refactoring - Rename node IDs, subgraph IDs, CSS class names, and edge IDs across your entire diagram
  • Find usages - See everywhere a node, subgraph, or CSS class is referenced
  • Go to Related - Navigate between links and their linkStyle declarations, and from linkStyle indices to the declaring link
  • Code folding - Collapse subgraphs in large diagrams
  • Formatting - Auto-format your diagram code with multiline string alignment
  • Inspections - Detect undefined nodes, duplicate IDs, non-referenceable subgraph IDs, unclosed HTML tags, CSS class suffixes on generalized shapes, and more
  • Brace matching - Navigate between paired brackets
  • Code Vision - Relationship counts at a glance
  • Color provider - See hex colors inline in style definitions
  • Structure view - Hierarchical overview with subgraph nesting, node deduplication, and a unified Styles section
  • Style Pane - Visual property editor with presets, node shape editing, and link styling controls
  • Documentation - Hover with Cmd/Ctrl to see node labels, subgraph details, and type icons
  • Navigation bar - Quick access to diagram elements with context-aware icons

Directions:

  • TD or TB - Top to bottom
  • LR - Left to right
  • RL - Right to left
  • BT - Bottom to top

Node shapes:

  • [Text] - Rectangle
  • ([Text]) - Stadium/pill
  • {Text} - Diamond (decision)
  • [/Text/] - Parallelogram (input/output)
  • ((Text)) - Circle

Edges:

  • --> - Arrow
  • --- - Line
  • -.-> - Dotted arrow
  • ==> - Thick arrow
  • -->|Label| - Arrow with text
  • animate A --> B - Animated edge

Subgraphs:

flowchart LR
subgraph Backend
API --> DB
end
subgraph Frontend
UI --> API
end

For the complete syntax reference, see the Mermaid.js Flowchart documentation.