The Farkitect Workspace

Farkitect has two surfaces:

• The dashboard — on the website, in your browser. This is where you manage your projects, your reusable assets, and your account.
• The modeller — the app where you actually build models, with the Explorer, Canvas, and supporting panels. It runs as a desktop app and in the browser.

This page maps both. It describes what each area does and where to find it — not how to use it. For hands-on guidance, start with the tutorials.

The Website Dashboard

When you sign in at farkitect.com, you land in the dashboard — the home base for everything you own.

• Overview — a “continue where you left off” card that re-opens your last project, at-a-glance counts of your projects, assets, and members, and summaries of your projects and assets. Model counts (elements, relationships, diagrams) aren’t shown here — open a project’s page to see them.
• Projects — the list of projects you can access, with search, filters, and card or table views. Open a project’s model with the Farkitect it! button, which launches it in the modeller.
• Assets — your reusable .farki files (whole projects or individual packages). Upload new ones, and publish them to the Farketplace for others to use.

The left sidebar holds the Dashboard, Projects, and Assets links. The top bar has your organisation switcher (if you belong to more than one), a Support button, a link to these docs, the light/dark toggle, and your account menu. Links to your User Settings and Organisation Settings sit at the bottom of the sidebar — see Configure personal settings and Configure organisation settings.

The Modeller

Opening a project (Farkitect it!, or File > Open Project…) launches the modeller. It uses a dockable panel layout: you can drag panels to rearrange them, tab them together, pop them out, or resize them. Your layout is saved per project, on the device you are using, and restored when you return. A panel you hide and show again (from the View menu, or with the ✕ on its tab) comes back where it was: among the tabs it shared a group with, or beside the panels it sat next to. If that place no longer exists, it goes to its default place. Right-click any tab for Close, Close Others, Close to the Right and Close All, which act on the tabs in that group; see Panel tab. View > Reset Layout restores the default arrangement.

The browser tab (and the desktop window title) shows the name of the open project.

Menus

The modeller is driven by an application menu bar — File, Edit, View, Diagram, and Help — at the top of the window (the native menu bar on desktop, an in-window menu bar in the browser). It covers project management, import/export, panel toggles, theming, and zoom. For the full list of commands and their shortcuts, see the Menu Reference.

Panels

Explorer

Default position: Left side

The Explorer shows your project’s contents as a hierarchical tree: packages, elements, diagrams, and catalogs. Everything in your model lives here.

• M3 packages appear with red text — these are system-level and read-only
• M2 packages appear with yellow text — these are metamodel definitions
• M1 packages appear with white text — this is where your modeling work lives
• Diagrams and Catalogs appear as children of the package they belong to

You can right-click items for context menus, drag items to reorder or move them between packages, and use F2 to rename. Right-click a diagram, catalog or board and choose Clone to make a copy beside it with its name ready to type over — a quick way to derive a stakeholder-specific view without touching the original. View > Metamodels (Ctrl+Shift+M) shows or hides the M2/M3 packages.

In a metamodel, the one thing you can drag is an element type, onto another layer of the same metamodel. See How to create an element type.

The eye icon on the Explorer toolbar, Show all views, replaces the tree with a flat list of every diagram, catalog and board in the project, grouped by kind. Click it again to return to the tree. Drag a view from either the tree or that list onto a diagram to put a view link to it there.

The slash icon beside it, Hide relationships, takes the relationships out of the tree, leaving the model’s elements and views. A model usually has more relationships than elements, so the tree becomes much shorter and easier to scan. Click it again to show them; the tooltip says how many are hidden.

• It is only a filter on the tree. Diagrams, catalogs, the Context panel and exports still include every relationship.
• The button is dimmed while relationships are hidden, and your choice is remembered on that device.
• A package that holds only relationships stays in the tree and looks empty while they are hidden.
• Search looks only at what is shown, so it will not find a hidden relationship.
• Relationship types in a metamodel are not affected.
• While relationships are hidden you cannot drag one from the Explorer onto a diagram. Use Insert Related… on a node, or show them first.

After a metamodel upgrade, definitions kept only because models still use them show a muted retired label. When anything is retired, the Explorer toolbar adds an archive icon — Show only retired (N) — that filters the tree to those items and their parent packages. A large delete shows its row dimmed as Deleting… until it finishes.

Canvas

Default position: Centre

The editing surface. It hosts three kinds of view as tabs — diagrams, catalogs (tables), and boards (Kanban) — each a different projection of the same model. When you open a diagram (by double-clicking it in the Explorer), it appears here as a tab. You can:

• Drag elements from the Palette or Explorer onto the Canvas to add them
• Click and drag between elements to create relationships
• Select, move, resize, and arrange elements
• Route edges and add waypoints (see Route edges)
• Nest elements inside other elements by dragging them together
• Zoom with the scroll wheel and pan by dragging the background

Each open diagram has its own diagram toolbar along the top of the canvas, with diagram-specific controls:

• Save and Save All
• Undo / Redo
• Share — export the diagram as PNG, SVG, or PDF, or copy it to the clipboard
• Theme override — render this diagram in light or dark independently of the app theme (useful for exports)
• Toggles for property compartments, stereotypes, property names and empty properties
• Relationship labels: a drop-down to label each line with its Name, its type’s Verb, or nothing (None). See Choose what the relationship labels show
• The routing style for edges, and a snap all right angles action
• The related elements filter

Diagrams require an explicit Save (Ctrl+S / Cmd+S). Unsaved changes are indicated in the tab title.

Palette

Default position: Right side

The Palette shows the element types and relationship types available for the current diagram, grouped by their M2 metamodel layer. It combines types from all metamodels imported into the current package.

• Drag an element type from the Palette onto the Canvas to create a new instance
• Drag an element type from the Palette onto a package in the Explorer to create an element without placing it on a diagram
• Use the search box at the top to filter types by name
• Rest the pointer on a type to preview its definition in the Guidance panel. To keep it there while you read, click the pin at the right of the row, or press Space while the pointer is over it

Properties

Default position: Right side, below the Palette (tabbed with Notes and Guidance)

When you select an element (in the Explorer, on the Canvas, or in a Catalog), the Properties panel shows its editable fields:

• Name — the element’s display name
• Classifier — which M2 type this element is an instance of (read-only for M1 elements)
• Inheritance — for a metamodel type, a section listing its Superclasses (the types it inherits from) and Subclasses (the types that inherit from it). Click one to select it; add and remove them there. See How to use class generalization
• Property values — typed fields defined by the M2 metamodel (strings, numbers, booleans, dates, enumerations)
• Appearance (this diagram only) — when you select a node or edge on a diagram, a section below the property values that starts closed: its fill, border, text, line and label colours (each with a Light and a Dark value), border width and style, shadow, text alignment, line width and line pattern. Every row starts on Default and shows what it inherits; a small Custom appearance chip next to the name means this occurrence has overrides, and clicking it opens the Appearance section. See How to change a node’s or edge’s appearance on one diagram
• Relationships — incoming and outgoing relationships connected to this element

The panel’s collapsible sections remember whether you last opened or closed them. For a metamodel type these are Appearance, Inheritance, Property Types, Subordination (element types), Constraints (relationship types) and Advanced. Each heading says what is inside after a dot, such as Inheritance · 1 superclass or Property Types · 1 + 2 inherited, and shows its name alone when there is nothing inside, so you can see what is worth opening. Open the ones you are working in and they stay open as you click from one type to the next; the same goes for Appearance (this diagram only) as you click between nodes and edges. Each session starts with them closed.

Required properties are marked and validated. Enumeration properties show a dropdown of allowed values.

Notes

Default position: Right side (tabbed with Properties and Guidance)

A text editor for the selected element’s notes field. Supports Markdown formatting. Use this for longer descriptions, design decisions, or any narrative content associated with an element.

The Properties and Notes window

The Properties and Notes panels follow whatever you select, which suits editing as you move around. When you would rather work on one element in a window of its own, open its Properties and Notes window from a diagram:

• Double-click a node, or a relationship on its line or its label
• or select it and press Alt+Enter
• or right-click it and choose Properties…

The window is titled with the element’s name and type and has two tabs, Properties and Notes, showing exactly what the two panels show for that element.

• It opens on the tab you last left it on. Close it on Notes and it opens on Notes next time, for any element.
• It saves as you go, like the panels: a field is saved when you leave it, and notes when you click out of them. There is no Save or Cancel. Close, the ✕ and Escape first save whatever you were in the middle of.
• A click outside the window does not close it, so a stray click cannot dismiss what you are typing.
• Names that are links in the panel are plain text here. The window is for one element, so the path above the name and a relationship’s source and target cannot be clicked. Use the panels to move between elements.
• While it is open, the diagram behind it does not respond to the keyboard.

Double-clicking the drill-down arrow or the paperclip in the corner of a node does not open this window: those markers are links to the child diagram and the attached file.

Context

Default position: Left side, below the Explorer

Shows the elements related to the current selection — its connected elements across the model, with navigable links so you can jump from one element to another.

When you select an M2 element type (for example, Organisation), the Context panel also shows its place in the metamodel, in blue, above its instances:

• Relationships — every relationship type the element type can take part in, grouped by verb and direction (for example, builds → Brand, makes → Product), with the element types at the other end. Rules inherited from a supertype are tagged via Object; rules that apply to any element are tagged via any element. Relationship types that can connect anything are listed in one line at the end. Click a verb to open that relationship type, or an element type to select it. Click the chevron to expand or collapse a group.
• Instances — the M1 elements of this type in your model.

When you select an M2 relationship type, the panel shows its Constraints — each allowed source verb target pair on one line — above its instances.

Guidance

Default position: Right side (tabbed with Properties and Notes)

Shows the definition of the M2 type behind whatever you’ve selected — for an element on a diagram, the notes of its element type; for a relationship, the notes of its relationship type. Long guidance scrolls, with the heading kept in view. Toggle it from View > Guidance (Ctrl+Shift+G).

Guidance also follows the Palette. Rest the pointer on an element or relationship type in the Palette, and the Guidance panel previews that type’s definition (marked Palette preview); move off the Palette and it returns to your selection. To keep a type’s guidance in view — for example, to scroll through a long definition — pin it: click the pin that appears at the right of the Palette row, or press Space while the pointer is over the row. A pinned type stays until you click ✕ in the Guidance panel, pin another type, or select something else.

Log

Default position: Not shown at first. View > Log opens it at the bottom, below the diagram area

A dockable log panel that records mutations (create, update, delete operations) as they happen. Useful for understanding what changed and when.

• Filter by severity (info, warning, error)
• Filter by source (which part of the application triggered the change)

Toggle via View > Log or Ctrl+Shift+J / Cmd+Shift+J.

FarkiBot

Default position: Not shown at first. View > FarkiBot opens it as a tab in the centre

Farkitect’s AI assistant. Ask questions about your model, write documents from it, generate metamodels and models from a brief or an attached document, or modify a model you already have.

FarkiBot uses your own AI provider key — nothing is bundled and nothing is billed by us. A toolbar across the top of the panel controls the task, the LLM and what gets sent as context, and holds the buttons to copy, save or clear the conversation. Web research is turned on below the text box.

Toggle via View > FarkiBot or Ctrl+Shift+K / Cmd+Shift+K. See Working with FarkiBot.

Welcome

A first-run panel for new projects. Its getting-started checklist tracks six milestones live — add an M2 metamodel, create an M1 model, import the metamodel, create a diagram, add elements, connect them — ticking each off as your project reaches it, in any order. Every unfinished step is a link that performs it (open the metamodel wizard, create a model, set up imports, and so on). Toggle the panel from View > Welcome.

Status Bar

Position: Bottom of the workspace

The status bar shows contextual information:

• Selection info — what’s currently selected and how many items
• Element counts — total elements, relationships, and diagrams in the project
• Operation feedback — progress indicators for async operations (import, export, seed)
• Integrity — a status indicator showing whether the model has referential integrity issues. Click it to run an on-demand check (see Integrity checker)
• Auto-refresh off — an amber warning shown for as long as automatic metamodel refresh is turned off. Click it to open Settings
• Metamodel staleness — with automatic refresh off, a prompt to refresh metamodels when they’ve changed
• Role — your role on the current project

Hide or show it with View > Status Bar.

Settings

View > Settings… (Ctrl+, / Cmd+,) opens the Settings dialog; in the web app there is also a gear at the right-hand end of the menu bar. It holds the theme (Light, Dark or System), the height of the panel tabs (Regular or Narrow), Reset layout, automatic metamodel refresh, and shortcuts to FarkiBot’s settings and your account settings. Changes apply as you make them. See Settings in the modeller.

The View menu itself holds only what you show and hide: the panels, metamodels in the Explorer, and the status bar. Everything to do with your account — name, avatar, email and locale — lives on the website, on the User Settings page.

Find your release

Every release of Farkitect has a number, and a higher number is a newer release. If someone helping you asks which version you are on, this is what to tell them.

• In the app: choose Help > About.
• On the website and in these docs: click the release line at the foot of the page, for example Release 264 · 3 Oct 2026.

Both show the same details. Hover over a label to see what it means.

Label	Meaning
Release	The number of this release. Higher is newer.
Released	When this release went live, in your time zone, with UTC beside it.
Built	When this copy was assembled. Normally a minute or two after Released; later if it was rebuilt without a code change.
Environment	Production is the live service. Preview is a test copy of a change not yet released. Development is a developer’s machine.
Surface	Which part of Farkitect you are looking at: web app, desktop app, website or docs.
Commit	The exact code, as a short identifier. Support may ask for it.
Branch	The line of work the build came from. Always main for a release.

Copy details copies all of this as text, with your browser and operating system, ready to paste into a message. It includes nothing about your account or your models.

All releases opens Releases, the full list with what each one changed. What’s New explains the main changes month by month.

Keyboard Navigation

• Tab / Shift+Tab — cycle through nodes on the current diagram
• F2 — rename the selected item (Explorer or Canvas)
• Delete — remove the selected item from the diagram (Canvas) or delete it (Explorer)
• Escape — cancel the current operation or deselect
• Ctrl+S / Cmd+S — save diagram changes

For the complete list, see Keyboard Shortcuts.

Themes

Farkitect supports light and dark themes. Choose Light, Dark or System in View > Settings…, or switch with Ctrl+Shift+D / Cmd+Shift+D. Your preference is saved and persisted across sessions. Individual diagrams can override the theme for export using the diagram toolbar’s theme control.

Diagram colours have their own light and dark values, so switching the theme recolours the diagram as well as the app: lines and borders are charcoal in light mode and off-white in dark, for example. See How colours work in light and dark mode.