The map
Everything you draw is one map. One document holds it all, and the canvas, the scenarios, the stories and presenting all read from it.
| Thing | What it is |
|---|---|
| Part | A piece of the system, of one of 28 kinds, with an optional technology and a flag for parts someone else runs. |
| Line | A connection between two parts. It carries requests or messages, forward or both ways, with a label, a protocol and a rate. |
| Zone | A frame around parts that belong together: a region, network, system, team or any other zone. Zones nest. |
| Note | Plain words on the canvas, for whoever reads the map later. |
| View | One way of showing the map to one audience. See views. |
| Story | A walk through the map for presenting it. See stories. |
| Scenario | A saved “what if?”, such as Black Friday. See scenarios. |
| Map inside | Another map a part opens into, such as a payment service’s own modules. See maps inside parts. |
Numbers: rates and limits
Section titled “Numbers: rates and limits”A map holds the numbers behind its motion. Traffic lives on lines, as a rate: how much each carries each second at the busiest moment of a normal day. Limits live on parts, because a limit belongs to the part that enforces it: a capacity, a limit that turns traffic away, or a buffer that holds what’s waiting. See traffic and limits.
What the map keeps true
Section titled “What the map keeps true”Flozu checks a map after every change and every time it opens one, so a map can never be broken:
- Every id is unique across the whole map, so anything can be found by its id alone.
- A line joins two different parts that exist.
- A zone a part, note or other zone belongs to exists, and no zone is inside itself.
- Views, stories and scenarios only mention things that exist, and a map always has at least one view.
- Positions are on the canvas as a whole, even inside zones.
When you delete something, Flozu tidies up after it in the same step: deleting a part removes its lines and every mention of it in views and stories; deleting a zone keeps what was inside, in the zone around it.
Looks never change meaning
Section titled “Looks never change meaning”A part’s kind says what it does: how traffic moves through it and which limits it can have. How it looks (its card, drawing, size and colours) is separate, so a part can look however suits the map without changing how it behaves.
Saved as one file
Section titled “Saved as one file”A map saves as one .flozu.json file. See file format.