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Blog - Tutorials, Guides & Architecture Insights | Archyl
Tutorials, guides, and best practices for software architecture documentation, the C4 model, and AI-powered discovery.
Memory for AI Coding Agents: Storing Is the Easy Half
Agent memory is usually a pile of notes that only grows, and nothing in it can tell you which notes are still true.
The Archyl Harness: Coding Agents That Declare Their Work Before They Start
Last week we wrote about three agents opening three pull requests that were each right alone and wrong together, and admitted nothing in our setup would have…
Many Agents, One Architecture: What Happens When Two of Them Change the Same System
Run three coding agents against one codebase and you get three pull requests, each locally right, that together make the system three different things.
MCP Went Stateless: What the 2026-07-28 Revision Took Out of Our Server
The 2026-07-28 revision of the Model Context Protocol removed the thing most MCP servers are built on: the initialize handshake and the Mcp-Session-Id header.
Your AI Agents Have a Rules File. They Don't Have a Model of Your System.
Every coding agent reads a rules file: CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, .cursor/rules. Those files carry conventions, and conventions travel well.
Structurizr Cloud Shuts Down on 30 September: Get Your Model Out First
Structurizr's cloud service has been read-only since 1 July 2026 and reaches end of life on 30 September.
Time-lapse: Watch Your Architecture Evolve in a 30-Second Film
Your architecture has a history — every version captured, every change recorded. Time-lapse turns it into a cinematic film: elements draw themselves in, the…
Turn Code, Terraform and Diagrams into a C4 Model with MCP
The blank canvas is a lie: your architecture is already written down in Structurizr files, Terraform modules, Mermaid diagrams and README files.
How to Migrate Your Confluence Architecture Docs to Archyl with MCP
You don't have to leave Confluence. Move the pages that describe your architecture, leave the rest where they are, and do the move by connecting Atlassian's…
Anatomy of a Transfer: Modeling Revolut in C4 with Archyl
It's 19:47 in Paris. Léa taps Send, and £450 lands in a London bank account before she puts her phone down.
Reality: Your Architecture Diagram Comes Alive
Every architecture diagram is a snapshot — true the day it was drawn, drifting ever since.
Drag, Drop, Done: Files Come to Archyl Docs
Your architecture docs were all words and no receipts. Now you can drop screenshots, PDFs, and any file straight into a page — stored privately, shown…
Meet Archyl in Slack & Teams: Ask Your Architecture, In Chat
Your architecture knowledge shouldn't live behind a login. Mention @Archyl in Slack or Microsoft Teams and ask about your C4 model, ADRs, dependencies and…
MCP Playground: Run Your Agents' Tools Live, Right From the Docs
Documentation tells you what an MCP tool says it does. The new MCP Playground lets you actually call it — pick a tool, fill a form generated from its schema…
MCP Tools as API Contracts: Document What Your Agents Can Do
Your MCP servers expose tools to AI agents — a real interface surface that never shows up in architecture docs.
Archyl on Mobile: Your Architecture, in Your Hands
The whole of Archyl now works on your phone — the C4 canvas, decisions, insights, deployments, the agent hub, everything. No separate app to install.
AI Flow Generator: Describe a Journey, Get a Cross-Project Flow
Describe what you want to document. Archyl reads every project in your organisation, picks the ones that matter, and writes the flow — including the steps that…
We Redesigned Every C4 Element From Scratch
New nodes, new edges, new canvas. The Archyl diagram now reads at a glance instead of asking you to.
Anatomy of a Ride: Modeling Uber in C4 with Archyl
A rider taps Request UberX at 7:23 pm in the rain in NYC. Eight seconds later a driver 0.4 miles away has accepted, an ETA is on screen, fare is locked, and a…
Turn Your Backstage Catalog Into a Real C4 Architecture in 60 Seconds
Archyl now imports your Backstage Software Catalog with a single curl. Every System, Component, Resource, API contract, and relation lands in a navigable C4…
Anatomy of a Charge: Modeling Stripe in C4 with Archyl
A POST request hits Stripe at 3am during Black Friday. Twenty seconds later the merchant has been credited, the cardholder's bank charged, and a webhook fired…
Architecture in Your Inbox: Introducing the Weekly Team Digest
Architecture insights live in dashboards. The people who need them most live in their inbox.
C4 Code Diagram (Level 4): When You Need It and When You Don't
The C4 code diagram (level 4) shows the classes, interfaces, and functions inside a component. Most teams should skip it -- but not always.
C4 Component Diagram: Complete Guide with Examples
The C4 component diagram (level 3 of the C4 model) zooms into a single container and shows the components inside it.
C4 Container Diagram: Complete Guide with Examples
The C4 container diagram (C4 model level 2) shows the deployable building blocks of your system: web apps, APIs, databases, queues.
C4 Model vs UML: Which Should Your Team Use?
C4 model vs UML is one of the most common questions teams ask when choosing software architecture diagram standards.
C4 System Context Diagram: Complete Guide with Examples
The System Context diagram is C4 model level 1 -- the single most important architecture diagram your team can create.
What Are API Contracts? Definition, Examples & Best Practices
An API contract is the formal, agreed specification of an API's interface: operations, schemas, errors, and versioning rules.
Anatomy of a Play: Modeling Netflix in C4 with Archyl
Press Play on Netflix and ~50 services collaborate in less than 200 milliseconds.
Bring Your Own AI Provider: Use OpenAI, Claude, Gemini or Bedrock With Archyl
Archyl now lets your organization route every AI feature — chat, discovery, ADR parsing, insights, managed agents — through your own provider and your own…
Managed Agent Runs: Autonomous Agents That Work on Your Architecture While You Sleep
Ship autonomous AI agents that run on a schedule, connect to GitHub, Linear, Slack, and any MCP-compatible service, and work on your codebase with full…
Architecture Intelligence for AI-Native Teams
AI agents now write most of the code. But who makes sure they respect the architecture?
Maturity Score: Your Architecture's Health in a Single Grade
Drift score tells you if your documentation is accurate. Conformance tells you if your rules are followed. Insights tell you what's broken.
How AI Agents Are Transforming Architecture Documentation: From C4 Models to Automated Conformance
Manual architecture documentation is a losing battle. AI agents now generate C4 models, detect drift, compute maturity scores, and enforce conformance rules —…
Import Structurizr, LikeC4 & IcePanel Projects Into Archyl in One Click
Migrate your architecture documentation from Structurizr DSL, LikeC4, or IcePanel to Archyl in minutes.
Coding Agent Plugin: Manage Your Architecture Without Leaving Your Terminal
We just open-sourced a plugin that gives Claude Code, Codex, and other coding agents full access to Archyl's 200+ MCP tools.
Architecture Drift Score: Is Your Documentation Telling the Truth?
The Architecture Drift Score is a number from 0 to 100 for how much of your documented architecture still exists in your codebase.
Agent Hub: Architecture Guardrails for Autonomous AI Agents
AI coding agents write code fast. Without guardrails, they also drift fast. Today we're launching Agent Hub — a new section in Archyl that lets you define…
Built-in Widgets: Architecture Dashboards Without External Integrations
Not every team uses Datadog or PagerDuty, but every team has architecture insights, DORA metrics, releases, ADRs, and a technology stack.
Ownership Map: Visualize Who Owns What Across Your Architecture
Every architecture has an ownership problem. Services get built, teams shift, people leave — and suddenly nobody knows who's responsible for what.
DORA Metrics: Measure Engineering Performance Across Your Architecture
You track deployments. But do you know if your team is getting faster? Archyl now computes DORA metrics — Deployment Frequency, Lead Time, Change Failure Rate…
Architecture as Code: Define Your Entire C4 Model in a YAML File
We just shipped the feature that turns architecture documentation into a first-class citizen of your codebase.
Webhooks: Real-Time Notifications for Architecture Changes
Your architecture changes constantly — systems get added, components evolve, ADRs get written, releases ship.
Technology Radar: Visualize Your Tech Landscape at a Glance
Archyl now tracks the technologies powering your architecture. Attach languages, frameworks, databases, and tools to any C4 element, then explore your entire…
Auto Layout: Organize Your Architecture Diagrams Instantly
Manually positioning dozens of nodes on a C4 diagram is tedious work that adds no architectural value.
Single Source of Truth for Docs, ADRs & API Contracts — Now in Archyl
Architecture knowledge is scattered across whiteboards, Confluence pages, Swagger files, and GitHub wikis.
Single Source of Truth: Organization-Level Systems You Define Once and Use Everywhere
Architecture documentation drifts when the same system is defined independently in every project.
Impact Radar: Understand Change Before You Make It
Every architectural change sends ripples. Impact Radar lets you see exactly where those ripples go — before you commit.
Backstage vs Archyl: Two Approaches to Architecture Documentation
Backstage is a developer portal that happens to include a C4 plugin. Archyl is an architecture documentation platform built from the ground up around the C4…
On-Premise Deployment: Architecture Documentation That Lives Where Your Code Does
Not every organization can send its architecture data to the cloud. Regulated industries, government agencies, and security-conscious teams need their tools to…
Marketplace Integrations: Live Data From Your Tools, On Your Architecture
Architecture diagrams tell you what exists. Dashboards tell you how it's doing. These two things have always lived in separate tools. Today we're merging them.
Release Management: Track Every Deployment Across Your Architecture
Your architecture diagrams show what exists. Now they show what shipped. Archyl's new Release Management lets you track deployments across systems and…
API Contracts: Your API Specifications, Linked to Your Architecture
API specs are some of the most valuable artifacts in a codebase, yet they almost never appear in architecture documentation. We're changing that.
Architecture Chat: Ask Your Architecture Anything
Your C4 diagrams just learned to talk. Architecture Chat is an AI assistant that knows your entire architecture and answers questions about it in seconds —…
Architecture Change Requests: Pull Requests for Your C4 Model
Architecture evolves. Now it can evolve with the same rigor as your code. We're introducing Architecture Change Requests—a pull request workflow for proposing…
Enterprise SSO: SAML and OIDC Authentication for Custom Plans
Enterprise teams need centralized identity management. Archyl now supports custom SSO connections with SAML 2.0 and OpenID Connect, letting your team sign in…
Real-Time Collaboration on C4 Diagrams and Global Architecture
Architecture collaboration shouldn't stop at whiteboards. We're extending real-time presence, live cursors, and element focus tracking to your Project C4…
Event-Driven Architecture Documentation with C4 Model
Event-driven architectures are powerful but notoriously hard to document. Events are invisible, asynchronous, and decoupled by design.
Living Architecture Documentation: Keep Your Docs Always Current
Living architecture documentation is a way of working, not a format. The model is derived from the code, the updates ride in the same pull request as the…
DORA Metrics for Software Architecture Teams
DORA metrics measure engineering performance, but most teams track them in isolation from their architecture.
How to Use an MCP Server for Architecture Documentation
AI assistants are transforming how developers work, but they can't see your architecture documentation. MCP servers bridge that gap.
Architecture as Code: Define Your System Design Programmatically
Architecture as code brings the same rigor that infrastructure-as-code brought to operations.
How to Document Microservices Architecture: A Practical Guide
Microservices are powerful but notoriously hard to document. This practical guide covers the challenges, shows how to apply the C4 model to microservices, and…
Architecture Drift Detection: Keep Your Code Aligned with Design
Architecture drift is the gap between the system you documented and the system you actually have.
AI-Powered Architecture Documentation: The Future is Here
Manual architecture documentation is a losing battle. Code changes daily; diagrams update quarterly.
Architecture Decision Records (ADR): The Complete Guide
Architecture Decision Records capture the why behind your technical choices. This complete guide covers ADR formats, templates, best practices, tooling, and…
5 Best C4 Model Tools in 2026: Complete Comparison
Looking for the right tool to create and maintain C4 architecture diagrams? We compared the five best C4 model tools in 2026 -- Archyl, Structurizr, IcePanel…
What is the C4 Model? A Complete Guide for Software Teams
The C4 model is the most practical framework for visualizing software architecture.
Whiteboard Collaboration: Real-Time Architecture Workshops, Anywhere
Architecture discussions shouldn't be limited by geography. We're launching real-time whiteboard collaboration, enabling distributed teams to brainstorm…
Project Export & Import: Your Architecture, Fully Portable
Architecture documentation should never be locked in. We're launching full project export and import—backup your work, share with clients, or migrate between…
Custom Insight Rules: Your Architecture, Your Standards
Every organization has unique architecture standards. Generic linting catches some issues, but misses what matters most to your team.
MCP Server: Talk to Your Architecture from Your Favorite AI Tools
We just shipped the feature I'm most excited about: an MCP server that lets you query and modify your architecture documentation directly from Claude Code…
Introduction to the C4 Model for Software Architecture
After years of drawing confusing architecture diagrams, I discovered the C4 model. Here's why it changed how our team communicates about systems.
AI-Powered Architecture Discovery: How It Works
I built an AI system that reads codebases and generates architecture diagrams. Here's what I learned about the technology, the challenges, and why it's not…
Best Practices for Architecture Decision Records (ADRs)
We spent two weeks debating a database choice we'd already made and rejected a year earlier.
Documenting User Flows in Your Software Architecture
Our architecture diagrams looked perfect. Then a bug report came in, and we realized nobody actually understood how a user moved through the system.
Why Architecture Documentation Matters for Modern Teams
I used to think documentation was a waste of time. Then I watched three senior engineers leave in six months and take all our architecture knowledge with them.