drawio-mcp README

The project's README from github.com/jgraph/drawio-mcp. As one markdown file: README.md.

Draw.io MCP Server

The official draw.io MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that enables LLMs to create and open diagrams in the draw.io editor.

Four Ways to Create Diagrams

This repository offers four approaches for integrating draw.io with AI assistants. Pick the one that fits your setup:

MCP App Server MCP Tool Server Assistant Plugins Project Instructions
How it works Renders diagrams inline in chat Opens diagrams in your browser Generates .drawio files, optional PNG/SVG/PDF export or browser URL Claude generates draw.io URLs via Python
Diagram output Interactive viewer embedded in conversation draw.io editor in a new tab .drawio, .drawio.png / .svg / .pdf, or browser URL Clickable link to draw.io
Requires installation No (hosted at mcp.draw.io) Yes (npm package) One-line plugin install (draw.io Desktop only for PNG/SVG/PDF export) No — just paste instructions
Supports XML, CSV, Mermaid XML only ✅ All three XML only (native format) ✅ All three
Editable in draw.io Via "Open in draw.io" button ✅ Directly ✅ Directly Via link
Works with Claude.ai, VS Code, Cursor, any MCP Apps host Claude Desktop, Cursor, any MCP client Claude Code, Codex CLI, GitHub Copilot Claude.ai (with Projects)
Best for Inline previews in chat Local desktop workflows Local development workflows Quick setup, no install needed

MCP App Server

The MCP App server renders draw.io diagrams inline in AI chat interfaces using the MCP Apps protocol. Instead of opening a browser tab, diagrams appear directly in the conversation as interactive iframes.

The official hosted endpoint is available at:

https://mcp.draw.io/mcp

Add this URL as a remote MCP server in Claude.ai, Cursor, or any MCP Apps-compatible host — no installation required. In Cursor (≥ 2.6), diagrams render inline in the Agent chat (one-click install); on older builds, use the stdio @drawio/mcp tool server instead.

You can also run the server locally via Node.js or deploy your own instance to Cloudflare Workers.

Tools:

Full documentation →

Note: Inline diagram rendering requires an MCP host that supports the MCP Apps extension. In hosts without MCP Apps support, the tool still works but returns the XML as text.

MCP Tool Server

The original MCP server that opens diagrams directly in the draw.io editor. Supports XML, CSV, and Mermaid.js formats with lightbox and dark mode options. Published as @drawio/mcp on npm.

Quick start: npx @drawio/mcp

Setup instructions are available for Claude Desktop, Claude Code, VS Code (GitHub Copilot), and Cursor (with one-click install).

Full documentation →

Assistant Plugins (Claude Code, Codex CLI, GitHub Copilot)

The drawio skill packaged as a plugin for AI coding assistants (under plugins/): it generates native .drawio files, with optional export to PNG, SVG, or PDF (with embedded XML so the exported file remains editable in draw.io) — or a browser URL that opens the diagram directly in app.diagrams.net. No MCP setup required. The same skill ships for three hosts:

Claude Code (full documentation →) — install from this repo's marketplace:

/plugin marketplace add jgraph/drawio-mcp
/plugin install drawio@drawio

Or load it directly from a local clone with claude --plugin-dir ./plugins/claude-code.

Codex CLI (full documentation →) — install from the same marketplace repo:

codex plugin marketplace add jgraph/drawio-mcp
codex plugin add drawio@drawio

GitHub Copilot CLI (full documentation →) — install from the same marketplace repo:

copilot plugin marketplace add jgraph/drawio-mcp
copilot plugin install drawio@drawio

Other Copilot surfaces (VS Code agent mode, the coding agent, code review) load the same skill from a repo's .github/skills/ directory instead — see the plugin README.

By default, the plugin writes a .drawio file and opens it in draw.io. Mention a format in your request to change the output:

Alternative: Project Instructions (No MCP Required)

An alternative approach that works without installing anything. Add instructions to a Claude Project that teach Claude to generate draw.io URLs using Python code execution. No MCP server, no desktop app — just paste and go.

Full documentation →

Diagram layouts

Two optional, independent layout passes can run after the AI generates a diagram — one re-arranges the nodes, the other only reroutes the edges. Which are available depends on the approach:

Layout pass What it does App Server (create_diagram) Tool Server (open_drawio_xml) Assistant Plugins Project Instructions
ELK auto-layout (postLayout: "elk") Re-arranges nodes into a clean layered layout; routes the edges as part of it ✅ — ✅ via draw.io Desktop CLI (--layout) —
libavoid routing (routing: "libavoid") Keeps node positions; reroutes connectors orthogonally around the shapes ✅ ✅ from v1.3.0 ✅ via draw.io Desktop CLI (--layout libavoid) —

Data Residency & Offline Use

If you're deploying in an environment with strict data restrictions, here is exactly where diagram data goes for each approach.

No component sends your diagram to a cloud rasterizer. convert.diagrams.net (or any cloud export endpoint) is not called anywhere in this repository, and there is no "local dependency missing → fall back to cloud" path. PNG/SVG/PDF export happens only in the assistant plugins, which shell out to your locally installed draw.io Desktop CLI (located via which drawio); if it isn't installed, the .drawio file is kept and nothing is sent.

Does your diagram leave the machine?

Approach Diagram leaves the machine?
MCP App Server — hosted (mcp.draw.io) Yes — it is sent to the draw.io server as the MCP request. Self-host instead (below) to keep it local.
MCP App Server — self-hosted (local Node or your own Cloudflare) No — processed by your server and embedded in HTML that renders client-side.
MCP Tool Server (@drawio/mcp) No — carried in the URL #fragment, which browsers do not transmit to the server.
Assistant Plugins (Claude Code, Codex CLI, GitHub Copilot) No — written locally and exported by your local draw.io Desktop CLI.

By default the servers do not write diagram content to their logs — only request metadata (method, session, status, timing). The Cloudflare-hosted App Server logs response bodies only when run with DEBUG=true.

Reducing external requests

Even when the diagram itself stays local, the rendering loads draw.io's web-app / viewer code from app.diagrams.net and viewer.diagrams.net by default. These fetch application code and assets — not your diagram — but they are still outbound requests. To reduce or remove them:

Your LLM is a separate consideration

The diagram is generated by the LLM. If you use a hosted model, the diagram content is produced in that provider's cloud regardless of where this MCP server runs. End-to-end isolation requires a locally hosted model as well.

Verifying

The only reliable way to confirm a deployment makes no outbound calls is to run it with network egress blocked (or watch the browser's Network tab) and verify it still renders. We recommend this for any strict-isolation deployment.

XML Reference (Single Source of Truth)

The draw.io XML generation reference — covering edge routing, containers, layers, tags, metadata, dark mode, style properties, and XML well-formedness — lives in a single canonical file:

shared/xml-reference.md

All four approaches above use this file as their single source of truth for LLM prompts:

Approach How it accesses the reference
MCP App Server Reads the file at startup / build time and includes it in the tool description
MCP Tool Server Reads the file at startup (from repo or bundled copy via prepack)
Assistant Plugins (Claude Code, Codex CLI, GitHub Copilot) Reference the GitHub raw URL
Project Instructions Users copy its contents into their Claude Project

When updating XML generation guidance, edit only shared/xml-reference.md — changes propagate to all consumers automatically.

Shape Search Index

The search_shapes tool is powered by a pre-built index of all draw.io shapes. The index is generated from the live draw.io client (https://app.diagrams.net/js/app.min.js) by running all sidebar palette initializations in Node.js via jsdom and capturing the shape data.

Icons from the draw.io icon service (icons.diagrams.net — the same grouped icon search the editor sidebar uses) are not part of this index: search_shapes queries the service live when the local index has no strong match for a query, returning the icons as shape=image styles. Set DRAWIO_ICON_SERVICE_URL to a self-hosted service to override the endpoint, or to off to disable icon supplementation.

shape-search/search-index.json is committed to the repository and is automatically refreshed on every draw.io release via the Update Shape Search Index GitHub Action — no manual step is required to stay in sync with the latest shapes.

To regenerate the index manually (e.g. when iterating on the generator itself):

cd shape-search
npm install
npm run generate

# Rebuild the MCP App Server worker to embed the updated index
cd ../mcp-app-server
npm run build:worker

The generator fetches app.min.js directly from the public draw.io web app, so no local checkout of the draw.io source is needed.

Development

# MCP App Server
cd mcp-app-server
npm install
npm start

# MCP Tool Server
cd mcp-tool-server
npm install
npm start

drawio-mcp (jgraph/drawio-mcp)

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Drawio-mcp
Что это такое?Официальный MCP-сервер draw.io: он позволяет LLM и ИИ-ассистентам создавать диаграммы и открывать их в редакторе draw.io — от встроенных превью прямо в чате до файлов .drawio на диске.
Это один сервер или есть несколько способов подключить его к моему ИИ-ассистенту?Четыре способа подключения: MCP App Server, который отображает диаграммы прямо в чате, MCP Tool Server, который открывает их в браузере, плагины для ИИ-ассистентов для программирования, создающие файлы .drawio, и вставляемые инструкции для проекта, не требующие ничего устанавливать.
Как его запустить?Добавьте hosted-URL mcp.draw.io как удалённый MCP-сервер в Claude.ai, Cursor или любой хост с поддержкой MCP Apps — без установки. Либо запустите tool server командой 'npx @drawio/mcp', либо установите плагин из маркетплейса репозитория одной командой.
С какими ИИ-инструментами его можно использовать?App Server работает в Claude.ai, VS Code и Cursor; Tool Server — в Claude Desktop, Cursor и любом MCP-клиенте; плагины рассчитаны на Claude Code, Codex CLI и GitHub Copilot; режиму с инструкциями достаточно Claude Project.
Встроенное превью в чате звучит заманчиво — оно работает в любом хосте?Нет. Встроенный рендеринг требует хоста с поддержкой MCP Apps, например Claude.ai или Cursor 2.6+. В остальных случаях инструмент тоже работает, но возвращает диаграмму как обычный текст XML — там лучше использовать Tool Server, открывающий её в браузере.
Данные моей диаграммы покидают мой компьютер?Обычно нет: Tool Server передаёт диаграммы во фрагменте URL, который браузеры никогда не отправляют, а плагины хранят всё локально, экспортируя через ваш собственный draw.io Desktop CLI. Наружу данные отправляет только hosted App Server — если это важно, разверните его у себя.
Что он вообще умеет рисовать — простые прямоугольники или настоящие значки вроде AWS и UML?Настоящие: searchshapes ищет по более чем 10 000 фигур во всех библиотеках draw.io — AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes, UML, BPMN, Cisco, электротехника и другие — плюс есть живой сервис иконок для брендовых логотипов; на выходе вы получаете строки стилей, готовые к вставке в ваш XML.
В каких форматах можно описать диаграмму?XML, CSV и Mermaid.js. Tool Server и инструкции для проекта принимают все три; App Server и плагины работают с XML draw.io — нативным форматом, который остаётся полностью редактируемым.
Он сам может привести в порядок неаккуратную раскладку?Есть два необязательных прохода: авто-раскладка ELK перестраивает узлы в аккуратную слоистую структуру, а libavoid лишь перенаправляет соединительные линии ортогонально вокруг фигур, которые вы расставили вручную. Выберите что-то одно — ELK уже сам прокладывает свои рёбра.
Нужен ли установленный draw.io Desktop для чего-то из этого?Не для MCP-серверов или вывода через URL — он нужен только для экспорта PNG/SVG/PDF в плагинах, которые обращаются к вашему локальному draw.io Desktop CLI. Бонус: экспортируемые файлы содержат XML внутри, поэтому их можно продолжать редактировать в draw.io.
What are similar projects?headroom, agentmemory, drawio-skill, context-mode, jevmem, lean-ctx, graphicle, Baize
Which topics is it in?uml, diagrams, copilot, coding-agents, model-context-protocol, offline, mcp-server, claude, codex, privacy, claude-code, mcp
Creator
jgraph
Size
15.6 MB
Stars
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Updated
CommitOct 19
Age
8mo
Commits · 90 Days