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Show HN: Turn any workflow diagram into compilable, running and stateful code

workflows.diagrid.io

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Show HN: Turn any workflow diagram into compilable, running and stateful code

#1

Post by yaronsc »

Hi HN folks, I'm a co-creator of the Dapr CNCF project and co-founder of Diagrid. Today we announced a free-to-use web app that takes any form of workflow diagram (UML, BPMN, scribble in your favorite drawing tool or even on paper) and generates code that runs in any IDE and that can be deployed to Kubernetes and other container based systems, based on Dapr's durable execution workflow engine. This essentially allows you to run durable workflows in minutes and leaves out the guesswork for how to structure, code and optimize a code-first workflow app. I'm happy for you to give this a try and provide feedback!

Show HN: Turn any workflow diagram into compilable, running and stateful code
workflows.diagrid.io

Re: Show HN: Turn any workflow diagram into compilable, running and stateful code

#2

Post by swyx »

1. yeah this is nice, making it easier to generate workflows is always good. i think the challenge is always versioning and proper error handling - if the diagram the user sends in doesnt properly model the work done, then you're SOL.

2. (sorry to bring it up but have to ask) how does Diagrid/Dapr compare to Temporal? i browsed your docs but there wasn't much that came up. is Dapr strictly dag based?

Re: Show HN: Turn any workflow diagram into compilable, running and stateful code

#3

Post by potamic »

This is really cool as far as the application goes, but I do have a question on how you plan to compete/differentiate, if at all. I fed the same image to one of the flagship LLMs and was able to generate, more or less, the same dapr scaffold. You might probably be able to fine tune towards dapr use case better, but if one of the flagship models that people already use is going to come close, then it becomes a hard sell.

I suppose it's also a general question about the many new AI applications in the market, because these flagship models are getting really good by the day, and seem to be eating up into each and every of those use cases.

Re: Show HN: Turn any workflow diagram into compilable, running and stateful code

#6

Post by dantastic »

mpetrovich wrote: post #5

Some feedback: show example input & output without requiring me to create an account. Looks interesting, best of luck!

This. There's a few example diagrams but I need an account to see the output of those example diagrams? No thanks.

Re: Show HN: Turn any workflow diagram into compilable, running and stateful code

#7

Post by sky2224 »

This is cool. I remember not too long ago I had a professor telling me that this was essentially the future of software engineering and that soon we won't be writing code as we know it today. I believed him, I just didn't think we'd be seeing it here so soon.

Any plans to create systems that allow this to be embedded in existing code bases? It'd be neat to be able to sketch out new systems that your tool could generate code for that seamlessly hooks into an existing system's architecture, especially if it could have a UX similar to how copilot or cursor behave in how they're directly inline with the code.

Re: Show HN: Turn any workflow diagram into compilable, running and stateful code

#8

Post by raydenvm »

This reminds me of the UML/RUP era from the early 2000s.... Is that an attempt to revive or even resurrect UML diagrams and Rational Unified Process blending it with AI? I would bet it's all dead forever. I'm skeptical about diagram-driven development making a comeback. In my experience, developers today prefer more agile, code-first approaches because requirements change rapidly and maintaining diagram-code synchronization is an unbearable challenge.

Re: Show HN: Turn any workflow diagram into compilable, running and stateful code

#9

Post by sky2224 »

dantastic wrote: post #6
mpetrovich wrote: post #5

Some feedback: show example input & output without requiring me to create an account. Looks interesting, best of luck!

This. There's a few example diagrams but I need an account to see the output of those example diagrams? No thanks.

Even worse, you have to download a .zip containing the output.

I'm probably a bit too trusting, but holy hell does that still give a terrible first impression when we have in-browser solutions available to show code demos.

Re: Show HN: Turn any workflow diagram into compilable, running and stateful code

#10

Post by aqula »

raydenvm wrote: post #8

This reminds me of the UML/RUP era from the early 2000s.... Is that an attempt to revive or even resurrect UML diagrams and Rational Unified Process blending it with AI? I would bet it's all dead forever. I'm skeptical about diagram-driven development making a comeback. In my experience, developers today prefer more agile, code-first approaches because requirements change rapidly and maintaining diagram-code synchron…

Code-first is kinda moving towards prompt-first. A diagram is just another way to prompt, so I can see this making a comeback, esp. with AI taking over more and more code.
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