Agent skill · nousresearch
excalidraw
Hand-drawn Excalidraw JSON diagrams (arch, flow, seq).
What it needs
About 4k tokens when loaded.
What this skill does
Excalidraw Diagram Skill Create diagrams by writing standard Excalidraw element JSON and saving as .excalidraw files. These files can be drag-and-dropped onto excalidraw.com for viewing and editing. No accounts, no API keys, no rendering libraries -- just JSON. When to use Generate .excalidraw files for architecture diagrams, flowcharts, sequence diagrams, concept maps, and more. Files can be opened at excalidraw.com or uploaded for shareable links. Workflow 1. Load this skill (you already did) 2. Write the elements JSON -- an array of Excalidraw element objects 3. Save the file using writefile to create a .excalidraw file 4. Optionally upload for a shareable link using scripts/upload.py via terminal Saving a Diagram Wrap your elements array in the standard .excalidraw envelope and save with writefile: Save to any path, e.g. ~/diagrams/mydiagram.excalidraw. Uploading for a Shareable Link Run the upload script (located in this skill's scripts/ directory) via terminal: This uploads to excalidraw.com (no account needed) and prints a shareable URL. Requires the cryptography pip package (pip install cryptography). --- Element Format Reference Required Fields (all elements) type, id (unique string), x, y, width, height Defaults (skip these -- they're applied automatically) strokeColor: "#1e1e1e" backgroundColor: "transparent" fillStyle: "solid" strokeWidth: 2 roughness: 1 (hand-drawn look) opacity: 100 Canvas background is white. Element Types Rectangle: roundness: { "type": 3 } for rounded corners backgroundColor: "#a5d8ff", fillStyle: "solid" for filled Ellipse: Diamond: Labeled shape (container binding) -- create a text element bound to the shape: WARNING: Do NOT use "label": { "text": "..." } on shapes. This is NOT a valid Excalidraw property and will be silently ignored, producing blank shapes. You MUST use the container binding approach below. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills nousresearch/excalidraw--1a89ff