Turn Plain Text Into Flowcharts Without Touching a Design Tool

You've got a process in your head, or a decision tree, or a system diagram—and you need to show it to someone. The problem is that most diagramming tools make you drag boxes around for twenty minutes before you can say anything useful. Flowchart Fun takes a different approach: you write the structure as text, and it draws the chart for you.

What It Does

Flowchart Fun is a webapp for quickly generating flowcharts from text. The workflow is simple—you type out your nodes and their relationships, and the app renders them as a visual diagram. The project describes the experience as fast and intuitive, aimed at letting you visualize ideas and plans in minutes rather than fiddling with a canvas.

The syntax is minimal and readable. Here's the example from the README:

Node A
  goes to: Node B
  and: Node C
    goes back to: (Node A)

Indentation establishes hierarchy, goes to and and define connections, and parentheses let you reference a node you've already declared—so you can loop back without duplicating anything. That last detail matters: it means you can express cycles and returns naturally in a plain-text format.

Under the hood, it's built with React and cytoscape.js, a well-established graph visualization library. The project is organized as a monorepo with shared packages, and there's a separate syntax parser called Graph Selector that handles the text-to-graph translation.

Why It's Cool

• Text beats dragging. The core insight here is that most flowcharts are really just relationships between a handful of labeled things. Once you accept that, a text editor is a faster interface than a mouse for defining structure. You get version control, diffs, and copy-paste for free—things that are awkward with binary diagram files.

• The syntax stays out of your way. There's no schema to learn, no JSON to hand-write, no DSL with a hundred keywords. You write something close to how you'd describe the flow out loud, and the parser figures out the graph. That's a low enough barrier that you'll actually use it for throwaway diagrams, not just the ones you're forced to document.

• Node references with parentheses. The (Node A) syntax for referring back to an existing node is a small feature with outsized impact. Without it, cyclic diagrams become a mess of duplicate nodes or awkward naming. With it, you can model retry loops, feedback cycles, and return paths the way they actually work.

• It's genuinely open to contributions. The README points would-be contributors toward Graph Selector, the syntax parser, as the place to start. That's a smart ask—parser work is self-contained, testable, and doesn't require you to spin up the whole app. If you've been looking for a first open source contribution that isn't a typo fix, that's a real entry point.

• Translations are set up properly. Localization uses .po files under app/src/locales/[language]/messages.po, and the README explicitly welcomes help adding languages—with an invitation to coordinate on Discord. It's a small thing, but it signals the project is thinking past its initial audience.

• Testing isn't an afterthought. Jest handles unit tests, Playwright handles end-to-end tests, and there's even a bundle analysis script. For a project of this scope, that's a healthy amount of infrastructure.

How to Try It

The fastest path is the hosted app at flowchart.fun—paste in some text and see what comes out. No install required.

If you want to run it locally or contribute, start by cloning the repository:

git clone https://github.com/tone-row/flowchart-fun
cd flowchart-fun

Copy the environment file and fill in your variables:

cp .env.example .env

Install dependencies with pnpm:

pnpm install

The README notes that shared and formulaic need to be built before the app will run:

pnpm -F shared build && pnpm -F formulaic build

Then pick your mode. Without login features—no Vercel account needed—just run:

pnpm dev

With login features, you'll need a Vercel account and the CLI installed:

vercel dev

One caveat worth knowing up front: deploying the full app requires a Pro Vercel account because it uses more than twelve serverless functions. Developing the premium features also means setting up accounts with Vercel, Supabase, Stripe, and Sendgrid—so if you're just poking around, stick with pnpm dev.

There are also test commands if you want to verify things work:

pnpm -F app test
pnpm -F app e2e

The repository lives at github.com/tone-row/flowchart-fun.

Final Thoughts

Flowchart Fun is a focused tool that does one thing well: turning structured text into a diagram you can actually look at. It won't replace a full-featured diagramming suite for polished, presentation-ready graphics, and it isn't trying to. What it's good for is the moment when you need to externalize a process quickly—for a design doc, a code review, or just to check your own thinking.

If you diagram occasionally and resent the overhead, this is worth a bookmark. If you're a developer looking for a well-scoped place to contribute, the Graph Selector parser is a legitimately inviting target—and the maintainers seem eager to help newcomers get oriented.

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