Designer

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Designer mode is where you author a Kanvas design. You compose infrastructure from versioned components, configure each one against its schema, connect components with relationships, annotate the result, and validate or deploy it, all on one canvas that every collaborator edits at the same time. Designer works on intent: what you want to run. Operator works on live state: what is running.

Designer: the bottom dock holds the tools for adding components and annotations, and the Layers panel controls what the canvas draws.

A design is a shared document 🔗

Everything on the canvas is an entry in one design document: every component you configure, every relationship, and every annotation you draw. The canvas draws that document. Moving a node, applying a layout, or hiding a layer writes into the design. As a result:

Canvas Actions

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Right-clicking an empty part of the canvas - anywhere no component sits - opens the Canvas Actions menu. Where the component context menu acts on one component, this menu acts on the canvas as a whole: undoing and redoing, pasting, selecting everything, capturing the canvas as an image, and reaching help.

The menu adapts to the mode you are in. Commenting and pasting, for example, are offered in Designer mode but not in Operator mode, where the canvas reflects discovered infrastructure rather than a design you are authoring.

Canvas on Layer5 Documentation

Designer

A design is a shared document 🔗

Canvas Actions