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Review and edit

The Topology tab is where you check what parsing extracted and put right what it got wrong. Nothing you do here is lost: every save is a version, and every version can be previewed, compared and restored.

Three views​

  • Preview renders the diagram. Click a node for a popover with its type, zone, linked controls and connections; from there Edit node, View full details (a side panel with identity, zone, every inbound and outbound connection, and the parser's confidence in the node), or Link to Control. Click a connection to select it.
  • Visual opens the editor panel beside the diagram, with Nodes, Edges and Zones lists to add, edit and delete elements.
  • Code shows the diagram's Mermaid source. Edit it and Preview Changes to see the result; a syntax cheat sheet sits under the editor.

The legend (toggle it with L) maps shapes to element families: hexagons for security devices, stadiums for network gear, rectangles for compute, cylinders for data stores, circles for cloud constructs, and so on.

What an element carries​

A node has a label, a type, an optional zone, and an IP address, port and protocol where known. Types come in families: security (firewall, WAF, IDS/IPS, proxy, reverse proxy, SIEM), network (router, switch, load balancer, VPN, NAT gateway, CDN, DNS, gateway), compute (server, web, app, database, storage, bastion, backup, utility, jump and mail servers), cloud (cloud, VPC, subnet, internet, API gateway), containers (container, Kubernetes, serverless function), clients and endpoints (user, client, workstation, mobile, IoT device, printer), operations (monitoring, logging, queue, cache), and identity (IAM role, IAM group, privileged policy, service principal, identity provider, external account). The type decides the node's shape and which controls are suggested for it.

Three fields exist for audit work rather than drawing: criticality (low to critical), data classification (public, internal, confidential, restricted) and vendor or product (say, "Palo Alto PA-440"), which strengthens the node as evidence of a specific control implementation.

A connection has a source, a target, an optional label, protocol and port, and can be marked bidirectional. A zone has a name, a type (DMZ, public, private, internal, management, external, production, staging, development), a description, and the nodes assigned to it; a node belongs to one zone at a time.

Editing on the canvas​

The Edit tools in the toolbar turn on Move Nodes (drag nodes to new positions; keyboard users can arrow-key a focused node, Shift for larger steps) and Add Connection (click the source node, then the target). Select a connection and press Delete to remove it. Layout offers the diagram direction (top to bottom, bottom to top, left to right, right to left), undo and redo (Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Y) and Auto-Layout: a smart option that detects the diagram's structure and picks an algorithm, or a manual choice of hierarchical, force-directed, stress-minimized, tree or radial. View holds zoom, fit to view (F), presets and the legend.

Validation runs as you edit. Errors (a connection pointing at a node that does not exist, a duplicated id) and warnings (a node without a label, a node with an unknown type) are listed above the diagram.

Saving and versions​

Save writes the topology and records a version with a summary of what changed ("+2 nodes, -1 connection"). Discard returns to the last saved state. The History tab lists versions newest first, each with its change type (manual save, approval, restored), its summary and its node count: Preview renders any version, Compare shows two versions side by side with every added, removed and modified node, connection and zone and the before-and-after values of each changed field, and Restore creates a new version carrying an older one's content, so a restore is itself reversible.

Comments and presence​

The comments button in the toolbar opens a panel where anyone in the organization can comment on the diagram as a whole or on a specific node, zone or connection, with a type (general, issue, suggestion, approval). Comments thread as replies, can be resolved and reopened by anyone, and deleted by their author. Clicking a comment's target selects it on the diagram.

When others have the same diagram open, their avatars appear in the header with what they are doing (viewing, editing visually, editing code), and a marker sits on any node they have selected.

Templates​

An empty diagram offers Use Template, and the Export menu offers New from Template at any time. Five templates ship with the platform: a three-tier web application, an AWS VPC with public and private subnets, a zero trust architecture, a Kubernetes cluster, and a PCI DSS compliant network with a segmented cardholder data environment. Each has a difficulty, the frameworks it speaks to, and variables (an application name, a region, a merchant level) you fill in when you create from it. A template creates a new, already-parsed diagram attached to a new document.

Save as Template turns the current topology into a template of your own, with a name, category, difficulty, tags, frameworks and variables, for reuse across your organization. Platform administrators can publish templates to every organization.

Searching across diagrams​

The search button in the toolbar looks across every diagram in your organization for a node by name, IP address, hostname, type or zone, with filters by type, zone and diagram and a switch for nodes that already carry evidence. A result shows the node's details and its connections; View in Diagram opens it in place.

Inside a document​

A diagram opened from its document in Documents uses a different shell: a mode switcher (View, Edit, Analyze, Evidence, Export; keys 1 to 5) with an inspector panel on the right ([ and ] toggle it, ? lists the shortcuts). The same topology, versions, comments and evidence are behind it; only the arrangement differs.