arcIsaProcessMermaid 1.0.1-alpha

arcIsaProcessMermaid

Tool to generate a minimal markdown containing a mermaid graph that displays an ARC's connections of ISA processes from ARC investigation through studies and assays

💡 This tool is not meant as a long-term solution, but a quickfix and to illustrate what could readily and automatically be read from an ARC using the ARCtrl library.

Installation

Executables for macOS and Windows are available under releases.

1. Download and store the executable somewhere useful (e.g. program files)
2. Add it to $PATH variable

💡 On first use, one has to grant permissions (Windows Defender or macOS security warning)

Usage

Open a command line or terminal and run arcIsaProcessesSiren -p local/path/to/ARC.

USAGE: arcIsaProcessesSiren [--help] [--arcpath <path>] [--outpath <path>] [--outputmmd]

OPTIONS:

    --arcpath, -p <path>  specify path to an ARC
    --outpath, -o <path>  specify a file path and name to write results to (Default: `<path/to/ARC/arc-mermaid>.md or .mmd`)
    --outputmmd, -mmd     whether to output a .mmd file instead of markdown
    --help                display this list of options.

Rationale

Sure, mermaid graphs are not the tool of choice to display the overall complexity of ARCs. And they are far from anything dynamic or interactive.

However, mermaids in markdown

• are quick and can easily be adapted
• are static and should not break too easily (especially with type-safe F# library Siren)
• can readily be displayed in GitLab (i.e. DataHUB) or VSCode (with extensions)

Recommended mermaid VS Code extensions

To display the resulting mermaid graph, preview the file in VS Code with extensions installed:

• Markdown Preview Mermaid Support
• Mermaid Editor

Alternatively, copy/paste it to Mermaid Live Editor.

Idea

Based on discussions before and during the ARC-Process-GraphViz project at ARC symposium 2024.