Workspace & templates

Your workspace is the home for your diagrams. Start with a blank diagram when you know what you want to model, or use a template when you want a working example to explore.

What the workspace contains

Each diagram card shows its title, description, tags, and when it was last changed. Open a card to continue in the editor. The library shows active diagrams only, 12 cards per page. Use search to find words in a title, description, or tag; use the tag filter to narrow a larger library.

You can sort diagrams by recent activity or title. The options menu on a card lets you copy its editor link, organize its tags, or remove it from the active workspace.

The workspace switcher can show workspaces from more than one organization. Switching persists the selected workspace as your default and reloads its diagrams. An organization may also offer Create workspace or Rename; those actions depend on your organization capability and workspace plan limit. Workspace names allow 1–120 characters.

Start with a blank diagram

  1. In My workspace, select Create diagram.
  2. Add a short title. A description and tags are optional, but they make the diagram easier to find later.
  3. Create the diagram, then select Open editor. Mockflow also creates a starter journey that you can complete when the diagram is ready to run.

Start with a template

The template gallery contains complete examples you can inspect before using them. The current whole-diagram gallery has five runnable templates: Cache-aside, Queue retry + dead letter,Event fan-out, Order saga, and Database write + event trigger. File upload and notification fan-out are available as reusable blocks, not as whole-diagram templates.

  1. Open Templates and choose an example.
  2. Read How it works, Run this, and You will see to understand the example.
  3. Select Use template. Mockflow creates a a copy in your default active workspace and opens it in the editor. You need an editable workspace; a viewer cannot use a template.
  4. Run the included journey from the numbered Run control in the editor command bar. Open the run timeline to compare what happened with the template's explanation.
  5. Change the copy freely. The gallery example remains unchanged, and a future catalog update does not overwrite your work. Reusing the same current template in that workspace can return the existing copy instead of creating a duplicate.
Note

A template includes both a diagram and a runnable journey. It is a learning aid and a starting point, not a claim about how your live system is built.

Tip

If a previously copied template uses superseded component revisions, using the gallery again creates a refreshed copy and leaves the old diagram separate. The current copy is never silently rewritten.

Insert a reusable block

Blocks are small, graph-only fragments for composing a system inside an existing diagram. The editor library contains validated three-to-five-component fragments such as cache-aside, queue retry, event fan-out, order saga, database-write, file-upload, and notification-fan-out flows. A block brings its components, connections, handlers, and graph configuration; it does not bring a journey.

  1. Open a diagram in the editor and select Blocks in the tool panel.
  2. Search the library or filter it by tag. Each card shows a small topology preview and its component and connection count. The search covers the title, description, outcome, and tags.
  3. Select the plus button to place the block at the canvas center, or drag the card onto the canvas.
  4. Validate the inserted graph, then create or update a journey to exercise the new path.
Note

Block insertion is paused for read-only diagrams. Inserted blocks receive fresh identities and are offset when needed to avoid covering existing components. A block is graph-only, so create or update a journey yourself before running it.

What a template gives you

A template copy contains the complete graph, component settings, connection semantics, labels, and one named journey with its input, fixtures, seed, and safety limits. Components are refreshed to the current supported revisions before the catalog is seeded, including any required default settings introduced by a newer revision.

Mockflow checks every catalog template before it is offered: the graph must be valid, every component must use its current revision, the journey must still match the graph, and the journey must compile and complete. The examples also check for their defining evidence—for example, the database-write template must record a mutation and a state change, while the retry template must reach its dead-letter route.

Note

If an older template copy contains superseded component revisions, using the gallery template again can create a refreshed copy. Your older diagram remains separate so you can compare or keep it.

Keep diagrams easy to find

Use short, consistent tags such as a team, business area, or system name. Tags are saved in lowercase, may be up to 80 characters, and a diagram can have up to 30 tags. Tags are for organization only; they do not change a diagram or who can access it.

When you select more than one tag, a diagram matches if it has any of the selected tags. Archiving removes a diagram from the active workspace but keeps its saved draft and checkpoints recoverable. If another diagram links to it, the archive dialog shows a backlink warning; the warning does not block the archive.