Zindex – Diagram Infrastructure for Agents

56 points by _ben_ 10 days ago on hackernews | 17 comments

Agents create, edit, validate, and render diagrams as durable state - not throwaway output. Structured operations, immutable revisions, 40+ validation rules, and multiple render targets through the Diagram Scene Protocol (DSP).

zindex architecture

{
  "schemaVersion": "0.1",
  "scene": {
    "id": "payments-arch",
    "units": "px"
  },
  "elements": [
    {
      "id": "api",
      "kind": "node",
      "nodeType": "service",
      "shape": "roundedRect",
      "label": "API Gateway"
    },
    {
      "id": "queue",
      "kind": "node",
      "nodeType": "queue",
      "label": "Job Queue"
    },
    {
      "id": "e1",
      "kind": "edge",
      "from": { "elementId": "api" },
      "to": { "elementId": "queue" },
      "router": "orthogonal"
    }
  ]
}

Semantic, not geometric

Agents declare nodes, edges, and relationships. Layout is computed, not hand-placed.

Layout engine built in

A Sugiyama-style hierarchical layout pipeline figures out positions, edge routes, and label placement automatically. Agents describe the graph; the engine handles the geometry.

Patchable

Stable IDs enable incremental updates. Add a node, move an edge - without regenerating the entire diagram.

Renderer-agnostic

One canonical scene, multiple outputs: SVG and PNG with 4 render themes (clean, dark, blueprint, sketch).

Deterministic

Same input, same output. Validate → normalize → layout → render. Every step is inspectable.

Incremental editing

Patch-based updates instead of full regeneration. Agents can modify individual elements while preserving the rest.

Deterministic execution

Consistent output across runs. Failures are explainable. The pipeline is inspectable at every step.

Durable state

Revision history, diffs, stable IDs. Diagrams are versioned artifacts, not ephemeral outputs.

Multi-agent ready

Shared infrastructure for multiple agents collaborating on diagrams. Not just a single-shot generator.

Domain-aware

Purpose-built for architecture, BPMN workflows, ER diagrams, sequence diagrams, org charts, and network topology - not generic vector shapes.

Production-grade

17 operation types. 40+ semantic validation rules. Auth, rate limiting, PostgreSQL storage.

agents / LLMs decide what should change

zindex apply changes through DSP protocol

renderers display the result

Zindex is to diagrams what a database is to application state.

The agent-native runtime for creating, updating, validating, and rendering diagrams as durable state.