Boards Guide

Use this page to create a board, choose its layout, populate it, and nest layers. For concepts, start at Boards.

Create a board

Open the board listing and click Create Board. The sheet asks for:

The board is created in the folder you started from. Everything except the slug stays editable.

Set the layout

The first time you open a new board, Configure Layout appears instead of the canvas. Defaults are already picked, so Apply Layout Settings is usually enough. To customize, complete three steps.

Step 1 — layout type. Dashboard for a grid, Page for a scrollable column.

Step 2 — dimensions. The presets differ per layout type:

Step 3 — section template. This sets the internal structure: single diagram, title with content, header/content/footer, columns, and more.

Populate the canvas

Right-click empty canvas to open the element menu: Basic Node, Basic Container, and every archetype in your library.

Use an archetype whenever one fits. It includes styling, containment rules, expected fields, and standards. See Archetypes.

Connect two elements by dragging from one node's handle to another's. Click any element to open its details, where you edit its name, description, documentation, tags, and whatever properties its archetype expects.

Once elements are on the canvas, use marquee selection, shortcuts, copy/paste across boards, and the style painter. Canvas Editing has the full tour; press ? for shortcuts.

You do not have to draw everything by hand. Nodes and edges can also come from a governing source: a plugin push, or chat working from a bound document.

Nest a layer

Any node can hold a child layer, a full board inside it.

Right-click a node and choose Create Subsystem Layer. Name it, and the slug auto-fills. The node gains a drill-down indicator; clicking that indicator navigates into the layer.

Use the breadcrumb to open an ancestor and Map to open the board map.

Three ways a board appears

Boards appear three ways:

The connect plugin creates no layers. Its /sync grounds a board you already authored against a document repo, proposes evidence links, and reports drift.

Make it an app

The board bar has Make this an app. It binds a repo as the governing source and turns the board into an app board with a hub, six facets, and Pages once routes are adopted.

The control appears only where binding is allowed. App boards cannot nest, so no ancestor or descendant can already be an app.

The control asks for app type and branch, previews the hub, and registers the code-plugin source named after the board. Connecting Sources covers plugin connection.

Managing boards from the listing

From a board card's ⋯ menu:

Group boards into folders from the workspace sidebar. Workspaces & Organizations covers the tree and its filters.

What's next