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name architecture
description Generate professional .drawio architecture diagrams with Azure and AWS icons via the drawio MCP server and save them to the customer repo's architecture/ folder. Triggers include: 'architecture diagram', 'draw architecture', 'create diagram', 'architecture for customer', 'network topology', 'diagram this architecture', 'draw this in drawio', or any request to produce a visual architecture diagram for a customer engagement.

/architecture — Architecture Diagram Generator

Create professional architecture diagrams using the Draw.io MCP server (drawio/create_diagram) with verified Azure and AWS icons, and save them to the customer engagement repo's architecture/ folder.

Platform Compatibility

This skill runs on macOS, Linux, and Windows. Detect the OS first and pick the right syntax. See _shared/PLATFORM.md (skills repo root) for the full reference.

Action macOS / Linux (bash) Windows (PowerShell)
Make dir mkdir -p X New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path X | Out-Null
Search file content grep -i "pattern" file Select-String -Pattern "pattern" -Path file
Home dir ~ or $HOME $HOME

Note: the icon-catalog grep examples in this skill use bash. On Windows PowerShell, substitute Select-String -Pattern "<pattern>" -Path "$HOME/.copilot/skills/drawio-mcp-diagramming/references/<catalog>.txt".

Core Principles

  • Customer-scoped output. All diagrams are saved to ~/customer-engagements/{slug}/architecture/ with a descriptive filename and committed to git.
  • Azure-first defaults. Default to Azure icons and patterns unless the user specifies AWS or multi-cloud. Azure2 image-based icons are the primary style.
  • Preserve bilingual labels. Section headings are always English. Service labels and annotations stay in their original language — do not translate content.
  • Verified icons only. Never use an icon path or shape name in a diagram unless it has been confirmed by grepping the static catalogs. Unverified icons will not render.
  • Clean before dense. Start with a clean, readable layout (3-4 lanes, left-to-right flow). Add detail only when the user explicitly asks.

Prerequisite Auto-Install

Before running, verify all dependencies are present. Install anything missing automatically.

Required Sibling Skills

This skill requires the following sibling skill from the same repository (https://github.com/roie9876/clawpilot-skills):

Skill Purpose Required?
/customer-repo Customer engagement folder structure (~/customer-engagements/) ✅ For storing diagrams

Check if it is installed:

# macOS / Linux
[ -f "$HOME/.copilot/skills/customer-repo/SKILL.md" ] && echo "✅ customer-repo" || echo "❌ customer-repo MISSING"
# Windows
if (Test-Path "$HOME\.copilot\skills\customer-repo\SKILL.md") { "✅ customer-repo" } else { "❌ customer-repo MISSING" }

If missing, install all skills from the repository:

  1. Clone the repo (skip if already cloned):

    # macOS / Linux
[ -d "$HOME/customer-skills/.git" ] || git clone https://github.com/roie9876/clawpilot-skills.git "$HOME/customer-skills"
    # Windows
if (-not (Test-Path "$HOME\customer-skills\.git")) {
    git clone https://github.com/roie9876/clawpilot-skills.git "$HOME\customer-skills"
}

  2. Run the installer (idempotent — safe to re-run):

    # macOS / Linux
bash "$HOME/customer-skills/scripts/install.sh"
    # Windows
pwsh "$HOME\customer-skills\scripts\install.ps1"

  3. Verify installed. If still missing, stop and report the error.

Required Tools

Tool Check (POSIX) Check (Windows) Install (macOS) Install (Windows)
git git --version Get-Command git Pre-installed winget install Git.Git

Draw.io MCP Server

This skill requires the Draw.io MCP server. Check if the drawio/create_diagram tool is available. If not: add the MCP server in Clawpilot settings → MCP Servers → URL: https://mcp.draw.io/mcp.

Step 1: Understand the Architecture

Ask the user to describe the architecture they want to diagram, or accept it directly from the prompt (e.g., "/architecture hub-spoke network for Contoso").

Gather:

  • What services and components are involved?
  • What is the primary flow (data pipeline, request path, network topology)?
  • Which cloud provider? (Default: Azure. Support AWS and multi-cloud.)
  • Any specific requirements? (VNet isolation, traffic labels, compliance zones)

If the user provides a text description or whiteboard sketch, extract the components and flows from it.

Step 2: Identify Cloud Provider and Icon Library

Determine which icon library to use:

Provider Icon Library Catalog File Style Pattern
Azure (default) Azure2 SVG images ~/.copilot/skills/drawio-mcp-diagramming/references/azure2-complete-catalog.txt image;aspect=fixed;html=1;points=[];align=center;image=img/lib/azure2/<category>/<Icon>.svg;
AWS AWS4 stencil shapes ~/.copilot/skills/drawio-mcp-diagramming/references/aws4-complete-catalog.txt shape=mxgraph.aws4.<shape_name>;fillColor=<color>;fontColor=#ffffff;strokeColor=none;
Multi-cloud Both catalogs Grep both as needed Mix styles per provider

Important style differences:

  • Azure icons are SVG images — use image=img/lib/azure2/... style.
  • AWS icons are stencils — use shape=mxgraph.aws4.<name> style. Do NOT use image=img/lib/aws4/....

Step 3: Look Up and Verify Icon Paths

For every service in the diagram, grep the appropriate static catalog to find the correct icon path. This is a hard gate — never guess icon paths.

Azure Icon Lookup

grep -i "gateway" ~/.copilot/skills/drawio-mcp-diagramming/references/azure2-complete-catalog.txt
grep -i "virtual_machine\|load_balancer\|key_vault" ~/.copilot/skills/drawio-mcp-diagramming/references/azure2-complete-catalog.txt

Azure icon style template:

image;aspect=fixed;html=1;points=[];align=center;image=img/lib/azure2/<category>/<Icon_Name>.svg;

If local rendering fails, use absolute URL fallback:

image;aspect=fixed;html=1;points=[];align=center;image=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jgraph/drawio/dev/src/main/webapp/img/lib/azure2/<category>/<Icon_Name>.svg;

AWS Icon Lookup

grep -i "lambda" ~/.copilot/skills/drawio-mcp-diagramming/references/aws4-complete-catalog.txt
grep -i "load_balancing\|cloudfront\|route_53" ~/.copilot/skills/drawio-mcp-diagramming/references/aws4-complete-catalog.txt

AWS icon style template with service color conventions:

shape=mxgraph.aws4.<shape_name>;fillColor=<color>;fontColor=#ffffff;strokeColor=none;

AWS fill color conventions:

Category Fill Color
Compute (orange) #ED7100
Storage (green) #3F8624
Database (red) #C7131F
Networking (purple) #8C4FFF
Security (red) #DD344C
Management (pink) #E7157B
General/generic (dark) #232F3E

Validation Rule

If an icon path or shape name cannot be confirmed in the catalog:

  1. Do NOT use it in the diagram.
  2. Grep for alternatives (try partial names, synonyms).
  3. If no match exists, use a generic rectangle with a text label instead.

Step 4: Build the mxGraphModel XML

Construct a valid mxGraphModel XML payload using the verified icons.

XML Wrapper Format

Every .drawio file uses this outer structure:

<mxfile host="app.diagrams.net" modified="2026-01-01T00:00:00.000Z" agent="architecture-skill" version="24.0.0" type="device">
  <diagram id="architecture" name="Architecture">
    <mxGraphModel dx="1422" dy="762" grid="1" gridSize="10" guides="1" tooltips="1" connect="1" arrows="1" fold="1" page="1" pageScale="1" pageWidth="1600" pageHeight="1200" math="0" shadow="0">
      <root>
        <mxCell id="0"/>
        <mxCell id="1" parent="0"/>
        <!-- Diagram content here -->
      </root>
    </mxGraphModel>
  </diagram>
</mxfile>

General Layout Rules

  • Canvas sizing: Use pageWidth="1600" pageHeight="1200" for standard diagrams. Use pageWidth="1900" pageHeight="1500" for complex infrastructure/network topologies.
  • Icon sizing: Use width="64" height="64" for service icons (or width="48" height="48" for compact layouts).
  • Labels: Keep concise — service name + role (e.g., "App Gateway\n(WAF v2)"). Use whiteSpace=wrap;html=1; for multi-line.
  • Edges: Use edgeStyle=orthogonalEdgeStyle for clean routing. Label with flow semantics (protocols, ports, data types).
  • Cell IDs: Use descriptive IDs (e.g., id="app-gateway", id="subnet-app") for readability.

Step 5: Apply Network Topology Patterns (if applicable)

For infrastructure and network diagrams, apply these professional patterns.

Azure Network Topology

VNet styling:

  • VNets: Thick borders (strokeWidth=4), large containers
    • DMZ VNet: Yellow (fillColor=#fff2cc, strokeColor=#d6b656)
    • Internal VNet: Green (fillColor=#d5e8d4, strokeColor=#82b366)
    • Management Zone: Blue (fillColor=#dae8fc, strokeColor=#6c8ebf)

Subnet styling:

  • Dashed borders (strokeWidth=2, dashed=1, dashPattern=8 8)
  • Position inside VNet containers
  • Lighter shades of parent VNet color
  • Label with subnet name and CIDR (e.g., "Application Subnet - 10.x.2.0/24")
  • Delegated subnets: add delegation info (e.g., "PostgreSQL Subnet - 10.x.4.0/24 (Delegated)")

Resource positioning:

  • All resources inside their respective subnet containers
  • VMs, databases, load balancers visually contained within subnets
  • This clearly shows network isolation boundaries

Traffic flow labeling:

  • HTTPS:443 → red thick arrows for internet ingress
  • HTTP:8080/8090 → gold arrows for backend pools
  • PostgreSQL:5432 → blue dashed arrows for database connections
  • NFS/Gluster → green arrows for shared storage
  • RBAC/Identity → orange dashed arrows for management

Required boxes:

  1. Traffic Legend (bottom-left): All traffic types with color-coded arrows and protocol/port info. Use thick bordered white box (strokeWidth=3).
  2. Network Isolation Explanation (top-left): Visual conventions — VNets thick borders, subnets dashed borders, NSGs, private DNS. Use yellow background (fillColor=#fff9cc).
  3. Zone Separation: VNet Peering Zone (grey #f5f5f5), External Services Zone (orange #ffe6cc).

Azure topology example:

<mxGraphModel pageWidth="1900" pageHeight="1500">
  <root>
    <mxCell id="0"/>
    <mxCell id="1" parent="0"/>
    <!-- VNet Container -->
    <mxCell id="vnet-internal" value="Internal VNet - 10.x.0.0/16"
      style="rounded=0;whiteSpace=wrap;html=1;fillColor=#d5e8d4;strokeColor=#82b366;verticalAlign=top;fontSize=16;fontStyle=1;align=center;strokeWidth=4;"
      vertex="1" parent="1">
      <mxGeometry x="220" y="580" width="1340" height="820" as="geometry"/>
    </mxCell>
    <!-- Subnet inside VNet -->
    <mxCell id="subnet-app" value="Application Subnet - 10.x.2.0/24"
      style="rounded=1;whiteSpace=wrap;html=1;fillColor=#e6f4ea;strokeColor=#82b366;verticalAlign=top;fontSize=13;fontStyle=1;align=center;strokeWidth=2;dashed=1;dashPattern=8 8;"
      vertex="1" parent="vnet-internal">
      <mxGeometry x="40" y="70" width="480" height="340" as="geometry"/>
    </mxCell>
    <!-- Resource inside subnet -->
    <mxCell id="vm-app" value="App VM"
      style="image;aspect=fixed;html=1;points=[];align=center;image=img/lib/azure2/compute/Virtual_Machine.svg;"
      vertex="1" parent="subnet-app">
      <mxGeometry x="40" y="70" width="64" height="59" as="geometry"/>
    </mxCell>
    <!-- Labeled traffic edge -->
    <mxCell id="edge-db" value="PostgreSQL:5432"
      style="edgeStyle=orthogonalEdgeStyle;strokeWidth=2;strokeColor=#6c8ebf;dashed=1;"
      edge="1" source="vm-app" target="postgres" parent="1"/>
  </root>
</mxGraphModel>

AWS Network Topology

VPC styling:

  • VPCs: Thick borders (strokeWidth=4)
    • Production: Green (fillColor=#d5e8d4, strokeColor=#82b366)
    • Development: Blue (fillColor=#dae8fc, strokeColor=#6c8ebf)
    • Shared Services: Yellow (fillColor=#fff2cc, strokeColor=#d6b656)

Subnet styling:

  • Dashed borders (strokeWidth=2, dashed=1, dashPattern=8 8)
    • Public Subnets: Light green (fillColor=#e6f4ea, strokeColor=#82b366)
    • Private Subnets: Light blue (fillColor=#EFF7FF, strokeColor=#6c8ebf)
    • Isolated Subnets (databases): Light orange (fillColor=#fff3e0, strokeColor=#e6821e)
  • Label with subnet name, AZ, and CIDR (e.g., "Public Subnet A - us-east-1a - 10.x.1.0/24")
  • Use Availability Zone containers (light grey) inside VPCs

Traffic flow labeling:

  • HTTPS:443 → red thick arrows for internet ingress via ALB/CloudFront
  • Port 5432/3306 → blue dashed arrows for DB connections
  • HTTPS:443 → green arrows for VPC Endpoints / AWS service calls
  • SSH:22 / SSM → orange dashed for management / Bastion access

Required boxes:

  1. Traffic Legend (bottom-left): Traffic types with color-coded arrows
  2. Network Isolation Explanation (top-left): VPCs, subnets, Security Groups, NACLs, VPC Endpoints
  3. Zone Separation: Internet/Edge Zone (orange), VPC Peering / Transit Gateway Zone (grey), AWS Managed Services Zone (purple)

AWS topology example:

<mxGraphModel pageWidth="1900" pageHeight="1500">
  <root>
    <mxCell id="0"/>
    <mxCell id="1" parent="0"/>
    <!-- VPC Container -->
    <mxCell id="vpc-prod" value="Production VPC - 10.x.0.0/16"
      style="rounded=0;whiteSpace=wrap;html=1;fillColor=#d5e8d4;strokeColor=#82b366;verticalAlign=top;fontSize=16;fontStyle=1;align=center;strokeWidth=4;"
      vertex="1" parent="1">
      <mxGeometry x="220" y="200" width="1340" height="1100" as="geometry"/>
    </mxCell>
    <!-- Public Subnet -->
    <mxCell id="subnet-pub-a" value="Public Subnet A - us-east-1a - 10.x.1.0/24"
      style="rounded=1;whiteSpace=wrap;html=1;fillColor=#e6f4ea;strokeColor=#82b366;verticalAlign=top;fontSize=12;fontStyle=1;align=center;strokeWidth=2;dashed=1;dashPattern=8 8;"
      vertex="1" parent="vpc-prod">
      <mxGeometry x="40" y="80" width="550" height="200" as="geometry"/>
    </mxCell>
    <!-- ALB stencil -->
    <mxCell id="alb" value="ALB"
      style="shape=mxgraph.aws4.application_load_balancer;fillColor=#8C4FFF;fontColor=#ffffff;strokeColor=none;align=center;html=1;"
      vertex="1" parent="subnet-pub-a">
      <mxGeometry x="40" y="50" width="64" height="64" as="geometry"/>
    </mxCell>
  </root>
</mxGraphModel>

Step 6: Create the Diagram via MCP

Call the drawio MCP server to generate the diagram:

drawio/create_diagram

Pass the complete mxGraphModel XML as the input. The MCP server validates the XML and produces the diagram.

Before calling the tool, verify:

  • All icon paths confirmed against the appropriate catalog
  • XML is well-formed (no unclosed tags, proper escaping)
  • Cell IDs are unique across the diagram
  • Parent-child relationships are correct (resources inside subnets inside VNets/VPCs)

Step 7: Save to Customer Repo

  1. Detect the customer from the conversation context or ask.

  2. Compute the output path:

    ~/customer-engagements/{slug}/architecture/{descriptive-name}.drawio

    Where {descriptive-name} is a lowercase, hyphenated description of the diagram content.

    File naming examples:

    • network-topology.drawio
    • data-pipeline.drawio
    • hub-spoke-network.drawio
    • microservices-architecture.drawio
    • event-driven-pipeline.drawio

  3. Create the directory if needed:

    # macOS / Linux / WSL / Git Bash
mkdir -p "$HOME/customer-engagements/{slug}/architecture"
    # Windows PowerShell
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path "$HOME/customer-engagements/{slug}/architecture" | Out-Null

  4. Check if the file exists — If it does, read it and ask the user whether to overwrite, create a versioned copy (e.g., network-topology-v2.drawio), or skip.

  5. Write the .drawio file using the full <mxfile> wrapper (see Step 4 XML wrapper format).

  6. Commit to git:

    cd ~/customer-engagements/{slug}
git add architecture/{descriptive-name}.drawio
git commit -m "architecture: add {descriptive-name} diagram"

    If the repo is not a git repo or the commit fails, inform the user but do not fail — the diagram file is still written.

Visual Quality Guardrails

Apply these defaults unless the user explicitly asks for a dense or technical view:

  • 3-4 major lanes/zones max (e.g., Source, Pipeline, Cloud target).
  • Left-to-right primary flow with a single main path.
  • Stage numbering (1, 2, 3, 4) instead of many edge labels.
  • One icon per major service — avoid icon-per-step layouts.
  • Limit cross-lane lines to one security/auth line and one optional telemetry line.
  • Concise text — single purpose per box, no multiline overload.
  • Clean variant first — add detail only if requested.

Error Handling

Failure Mode Behavior
drawio/create_diagram returns XML parse error Check XML for malformed tags, unclosed elements, or invalid characters. Fix and retry.
drawio/create_diagram MCP server unavailable Check MCP server connectivity: verify drawio server appears in MCP server list. If offline, inform user and suggest trying again later or saving the XML manually.
Icon not found in catalog Do NOT guess. Grep catalog for alternatives (partial names, synonyms). If no match, use a generic rectangle with text label.
Icon renders as blank/broken in diagram Grep catalog for alternative icon paths. For Azure, try absolute GitHub URL fallback. For AWS, verify using shape=mxgraph.aws4.* not image=img/lib/aws4/.... Regenerate diagram.
Customer folder not found Offer to run /customer-repo to scaffold the engagement folder first.
git commit fails Inform the user the diagram was saved but not committed. Do not fail the skill.
Diagram too complex for canvas Increase canvas size (pageWidth/pageHeight) or suggest splitting into multiple diagrams.

Troubleshooting

MCP Server Connectivity

  • Confirm drawio MCP server appears in MCP server list.
  • If tool list is stale, reset cached tools and retry.
  • The drawio server URL is https://mcp.draw.io/mcp (HTTP transport).

Icon Rendering Issues

  • Azure icons not showing: Verify style uses image=img/lib/azure2/... (not shape=mxgraph.azure2.*). Try absolute GitHub URL fallback.
  • AWS icons not showing: Verify style uses shape=mxgraph.aws4.<name> (not image=img/lib/aws4/...). AWS4 icons are stencils, not SVG files.
  • Icons work in app.diagrams.net but not in VS Code: This is a known limitation of the VS Code draw.io extension. Recommend opening in the web app for full rendering.

XML Validation

  • Ensure all tags are properly closed.
  • Escape special characters in labels (& → &amp;, < → &lt;).
  • Verify cell IDs are unique.
  • Check parent-child relationships match the container hierarchy.

Catalog Staleness

If icons that should exist are not in the catalog, the catalog may need refreshing (human-run, not per diagram):

cd ~/.copilot/skills/drawio-mcp-diagramming/scripts
python3 search_azure2_icons_github.py --max-results 9999 > ../references/azure2-complete-catalog.txt
python3 search_aws4_icons_github.py --max-results 9999 > ../references/aws4-complete-catalog.txt