Agent Skill
Diagram Design skill
diagram-designcathrynlavery/diagram-designskills/diagram-design/SKILL.md
Create branded architecture, architecture delta, IT current-state, flowchart, sequence, state machine, ER/data model, timeline, swimlane, quadrant, radar/spider, polar chart (polar/radial lollipop), loop/flywheel, nested, tree, org chart, layer stack, exploded axonometric, axonometric plan, Venn, pyramid/funnel, treemap and marimekko, heatmap, bar and dumbbell, waterfall, line (slopegraph, ridgeline, streamgraph, bump), Gantt and scatter charts (bubble, beeswarm), high-level, process, medallion, data flow, DP integration, DP security matrix, Sankey, fishbone, Wardley map, kanban, user journey, service blueprint, deployment, dependency graph, UML class, story map, or database schema diagrams as HTML/SVG/PNG, with .drawio, Mermaid, and .excalidraw import, plus lifecycle phase maps, block decomposition trees, and onboarding guidance.
always on
211 tokname + description
once used
7,160 tokSKILL.md body
bundled files
2866 scripts
repo stars
60kGitHub
Install the Diagram Design skill
Skills CLI (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and others)
npx skills add https://github.com/cathrynlavery/diagram-design --skill diagram-design
Claude Code, by hand (all projects)
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/cathrynlavery/diagram-design.git /tmp/diagram-design mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills cp -R /tmp/diagram-design/skills/diagram-design ~/.claude/skills/diagram-design
For one project only, copy the folder into .claude/skills/ in that project instead. The agent picks it up when a task matches its description.
What it costs your context
Agent Skills load in three steps. Tokens counted with the o200k tokenizer; your model's count will differ a little.
| When | What loads | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Every session | Name and description | 211 tok |
| When the agent uses it | The SKILL.md instructions | 7,160 tok |
| Only if opened | 286 bundled files (5.0 MB) | varies |
Until it is used, diagram-design costs about 6.5× less than the median MCP server we measured (1,362 tokens on every turn). Skills vs MCP study
Checks
- Ships scripts the agent can run. Read them before installing.
- The instructions are over 5,000 tokens, the Agent Skills specification's guideline for SKILL.md.
Checked 2026-10-22 · method
What's inside
The headings of its SKILL.md. Read the full file on GitHub.
- Diagram Design
- 0. First-time setup — style guide gate
- 1. Philosophy
- 2. When to Use
- 3. Selection: semantic pattern, then visual type
- Visual-type guide (45)
- Confirm before drawing
- 4. Universal Anti-patterns
- 5. Design System
- Semantic roles (at a glance)
- 6. Core SVG Primitives
- Mandatory connector rules
- 7. Layout & Spacing
- Complexity budget (per diagram)
- 8. Summary Card Pattern
- 9. Pre-Output Checklist (Taste Gate)
- 10. Templates & Variants
- To create a new diagram
- 11. Importing an Existing Diagram (draw.io), Mermaid, and Excalidraw
- Output dials — format, size, detail level, audience
- 12. Output
- Accessible SVG contract
- Exporting to PNG / SVG