When it comes to building software, diagrams are critical, and too often wrong. Visual designers are time-consuming, and they lose even more efficiency as complexity increases. In this traditional workflow, diagrams are always at least one step behind the latest code commit. When diagrams can be automatically updated and deployed along with the changes they support, this is Diagrams As Code (DaC) in practice.

In this session, you'll learn about DaC from a conceptual and practical perspective, as we review the tooling you can use to match specific use cases and technical roles. We'll look in depth at Mermaid, the JavaScript-based, all-purpose diagramming and charting tool, and Structurizr, a visualization platform designed to support the C4 model of software architecture — a model you can fully adopt for your own projects. Both of these frameworks feature a containerization workflow, which you'll see working with Azure DevOps pipelines and GitHub Actions.

This session is intended as a practical, workflow-focused introduction to Diagrams As Code for a broad technical audience including analysts, developers, and architects. The session is best suited for an intermediate audience, but is accessible to beginners through examples of browser-based and local tooling, with additional depth for more advanced attendees through containerized workflows and CI/CD integration. Mermaid and Structurizr are used as representative examples rather than as the focus of the session, and the emphasis is on treating diagrams as versioned, reviewable, and buildable artifacts that are managed, reviewed, and delivered through the same workflows used for application code. This session has not previously been presented at a public conference.

All of my sessions are designed to encourage audience participation (to the extent possible given the specific venue), with planned discussion points throughout to keep attendees engaged. I am an experienced conference speaker, with prior appearances at events such as CodeMash, Stir Trek, Code PaLOUsa, CodeStock, Beer City Code, and Pittsburgh Tech Fest. The focus of my sessions is on practical instruction combined with an engaging, audience-centered delivery style. No special technical requirements beyond standard presentation capabilities.