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.xal Overview

.xal is an XML DSL for diagrams. The root tag is always <frame>.

<frame width="1440" height="900" class="pa-4">
  ...
</frame>

Important rules:

  • Layout coordinates use pixels.
  • The origin is the upper-left of the rendered frame.
  • Positive x extends right and positive y extends down.
  • Connections must be direct children of <frame> or inside frame-level <connections>.
  • AWS group tags, <rectangle>, and <port> require non-empty unique IDs so they can be referenced by connectors.

The parser uses standard XML syntax. Escape special characters in attribute values, for example &amp;.

For lookup tables, see the dedicated reference pages: