Linting Rules

Clean diagrams aren’t accidental. They’re enforced.

tlDiagram’s linter checks every diagram for architectural anti-patterns. Run it with tld validate.

These are heuristic checks for common issues that lead to messy, unreadable diagrams. They’re advisory and constantly evolving.

Configuring

The level is a global setting:

tld config set validation.level 2

Or override per run:

tld validate --strictness 3
tld validate --strictness 1

Disable specific rule codes:

tld config set validation.exclude_rules ARC002,ARC203

Or include only some:

tld config set validation.include_rules ARC001,ARC004

validation.allow_low_insight is a shortcut that turns ARC005 (Low Insight Ratio) off.

Code	Rule	What it flags
`ARC001`	High Density	A view has too many elements to read
`ARC002`	Isolated Element	An element has no connectors in its view
`ARC003`	Shared Context	Elements in a view that only relate through a shared parent
`ARC004`	Depth Mismatch	Inconsistent nesting depth across a view
`ARC005`	Low Insight Ratio	A view has mostly elements and few connectors
`ARC006`	Dead-End Drilldown	An element owns a view with no content
`ARC007`	Abstraction Leak	Functions or classes placed at the root level

Code	Rule	What it flags
`ARC102`	Missing Tech	An element has no `technology` field
`ARC103`	Unknown Technology	A technology isn’t in the catalog

Code	Rule	What it flags
`ARC201`	Missing Desc	An element has no `description`
`ARC202`	Generic Naming	A vague, non-domain-specific name
`ARC203`	Missing Label	A connector has no `label`

Drill into any rule with its code:

tld validate ARC001

Linting warnings are advisory. They don’t block anything. They appear in tld validate output, grouped by rule code, and in the editor.

A warning means “this might be a problem.” It’s your call whether to address it or acknowledge it.