Architecture Time-lapse

The time-lapse turns your project's version history into a short film. Starting from the earliest captured revision, your architecture builds itself in front of you: elements draw in, relationships trace across the canvas, updates flash, and retired elements are struck through in red. It ends with a credits band summarizing the whole journey.

Everything is computed from versions Archyl already captures automatically — there is nothing to set up, and the film is read-only: playing or exporting it never changes your model.

Requirements

The time-lapse needs at least two versions of the project that contain visible changes at the film's level. Versions are captured automatically as you edit, so this usually means you just need a bit of editing history.

If you see "Not enough history yet", keep editing the diagram — each editing session is captured as a new version.

Open the film

  1. Open a project's Diagram view.
  2. Click Time Travel in the toolbar (top right).
  3. In the panel header, click Time-lapse.

The player opens fullscreen and starts playing. Press Esc at any time to close it.

The Time-lapse button only appears once the project has two or more captured versions.

What you're watching

The film picks the most informative level automatically — containers when your project is a single system, system context otherwise — and plays one chapter per revision that changed something visible.

The visual language

What you see What it means
A card fading in with a glowing halo A new element was added in this revision
A line drawing itself between two cards A new relationship, labeled with its description or type
An amber MOD flash An existing element was updated (description, technology, …)
A red strike, a Retired stamp, and a dashed ghost The element was removed — it stays visible as a ghost, because removals are part of the story

The camera follows the action: it frames the changes of each revision, pushes in on the most significant cluster, and always keeps both ends of a new relationship in frame.

The on-screen information

  • Top left — the project name and the current revision number, its date and its author.
  • Captions — each chapter shows that version's description, so the film narrates itself with your team's own words. Chapters with no description fall back to "Revision N".
  • Chips — a per-revision summary: +N elements, +N relations, ~N updated, −N removed.
  • Bottom right — a live counter of total elements and relations.
  • End card — a credits band with a milestone strip (one tick per revision), count-up statistics, the contributing authors, and a Rev NN — current stamp.

The film is fully localized: captions, chips, stamps and credits all follow your interface language.

Controls

Action Control
Play / pause The play button, or Space
Jump to a moment Click or drag the progress bar
Jump to a revision Click a REV pill on the timeline
Close the player The close button, or Esc

The timeline shows a tick for every chapter, so you can jump straight to the revision you care about.

Choose which revisions appear

Long histories often contain revisions that add nothing to the story. Click the filter button in the transport bar to open the revision list, then use the eye toggle to hide any revision.

  • A hidden revision's changes are merged into the next visible revision — the film never shows a hole.
  • At least two revisions must stay visible; the last two rows lock automatically.
  • Show all revisions resets the filter.
  • Your selection is remembered per project in this browser.

Long histories

To keep films watchable, the time-lapse covers the last 10 revisions. Anything older is folded into the opening chapter, which draws your pre-existing architecture as the establishing shot — so nothing disappears, it simply isn't animated revision by revision.

Export as MP4

Click Export as MP4 in the transport bar. The film is rendered frame by frame inside your browser and downloaded as <project-slug>-timelapse.mp4:

  • 1920×1080, 24 fps, H.264
  • Rendering shows a live percentage and can be cancelled at any time
  • Nothing is uploaded — your architecture never leaves your machine, and no server-side rendering is involved

Rendering takes roughly three to four times the film's duration — a 30-second film needs a minute or two. Keep the tab in the foreground while it renders.

Requirements

MP4 export uses the browser's WebCodecs API, which needs:

  • A recent Chrome, Edge or Safari. Browsers without WebCodecs show the button disabled.
  • A secure context — the page must be served over HTTPS (or localhost). On a plain-HTTP internal address the button stays disabled; hover it for the exact reason.

Self-hosting Archyl on plain HTTP is the most common cause of a disabled export button — putting the app behind TLS fixes it.

Where to use it

  • Onboarding — a new engineer sees two years of architectural decisions in thirty seconds.
  • Architecture reviews and retros — open with the film instead of a static diagram.
  • Release and milestone announcements — drop the MP4 in Slack or a release note.
  • Stakeholder demos — the end card carries your project name, statistics and contributors.

Troubleshooting

"Not enough history yet" — the project has fewer than two versions with visible changes, or the revision filter hides too many. Open the filter and choose Show all revisions, or keep editing to capture more history.

The Time-lapse button is missing — the project has fewer than two captured versions.

The export button is disabled — your browser lacks WebCodecs, or the app is not served over HTTPS/localhost. Hover the button for the exact reason.

The export failed midway — retry; if it fails repeatedly, close other heavy tabs, as encoding is memory-intensive.

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