Cynefin diagrams now have a text-based DSL in Mermaid, for the first time!

A friend introduced me to the Cynefin framework as a tool to map and manage complexity. I’m in no way an expert, but the bits I’ve picked up have changed how I think about problems, and I became a big fan.

The Cynefin framework, created by Dave Snowden, is a conceptual sense-making model used to help identify the nature of a situation and determine the most appropriate approach to problem-solving.

That’s my best attempt at a summary; to learn more, visit the official Cynefin website: https://thecynefin.co

My PR to add Cynefin framework support to Mermaid.js shipped in mermaid 11.16.0 (https://github.com/mermaid-js/mermaid/releases/tag/mermaid%4011.16.0). With this addition, Cynefin diagrams now render natively in GitHub READMEs, GitLab, Notion, Obsidian, and every other tool that supports Mermaid. Version-controlled. Diffable in PRs. No screenshots. No drawing tools.

So when I found myself contributing diagram types to Mermaid and realized nobody had ever built a text-based DSL for Cynefin, the two threads came together: complex systems thinking and open source, two of my favorite things.

Huge thanks to Knut Sveidqvist and Ashish Jain for thorough, constructive reviews across several rounds of feedback, and for the patience it took to help me navigate the contribution. Open source works when maintainers invest in review quality with openness and kindness, which they absolutely did.

If this looks interesting, try it out. And if you find ways to improve it, please consider contributing.

Write-up: https://leomata.com/blog/cynefin-shipped/

#cynefin #mermaid #opensource #strategy #devtools