Enter GraphViz<\/a>. It\u2019s a suite of tools for laying out diagrams. In particular, I learned just enough of the dot language<\/a> to track my work. Here\u2019s an example Mikado Graph where we are replacing a legacy data store with a new database engine.<\/p>\n digraph G { subgraph finishedTasks { node[color=”gray”, fontcolor=”gray”]; “Service Class” “Move User Queries\\nto Service” “Move Project Queries\\nto Service” “Consolidate\\nBehind Interface” } subgraph currentTask { node[color=”orange”, style=filled]; “Migrate\\nData” } goal [peripheries=2, label=”Replace\\nDB Engine”] ; goal -> “Migrate\\nData” -> “Consolidate\\nBehind Interface” goal -> “Rewrite\\nquery methods” -> “Consolidate\\nBehind Interface” “Consolidate\\nBehind Interface” -> “Move User Queries\\nto Service” “Consolidate\\nBehind Interface” -> “Move Project Queries\\nto Service” “Move User Queries\\nto Service” -> “Service Class” “Move Project Queries\\nto Service” -> “Service Class” }<\/p>\n And here\u2019s what it looks like. The Double Line represents the ideal goal state. The arrows show work that\u2019s dependent on other work. The orange is the task currently being worked on, and the gray nodes are tasks we have completed. While this example is from a real use case, the actual graphs tend to be larger and emerge over time as we uncover more dependencies. So leaving a trail like this is super useful for an effort that spans several days or weeks with multiple commits a day. And I can slack the image so the team knows how things are going. open<\/strong><\/em> is a macOS specific program. Windows folks can use<\/p>\n . For linux, try ***open*** or check with your distro or tell someone on the internet it can\u2019t be done and they will correct you loudly.<\/p>\n First, I wrote a shell script to combine two steps. Write the script and open the picture. I\u2019ll call it openDot.sh.<\/p>\n #! \/bin\/sh<\/p>\n INFILE=$1 Now I can run .\/openDot.sh mikado.dot<\/strong><\/em> and the png opens in preview!<\/p>\n But that\u2019s still too much work. I need to use fswatch<\/strong><\/em> to pump out the updated file and xargs to update. (get you a bash subsystem. git-bash if nothing else) .<\/p>\n Seriously. Learn xargs. Soooo Goood<\/em><\/p>\n You can write graphs by hand, or write them with scripts!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recently, we had a book club where we read the Mikado Method, a process of handling large scale rearchitecting via refactors on the Master Branch without adversely impacting new features. One of the techniques that make up the method is visualizing the refactoring plan as a digraph of dependent steps. But as much as I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":31211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","associated_team_member":0,"associated_user_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281,259],"tags":[297],"service":[],"class_list":["post-11363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-practices","category-sep-tips","tag-tools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hexboxdev.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hexboxdev.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hexboxdev.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hexboxdev.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hexboxdev.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hexboxdev.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hexboxdev.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hexboxdev.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hexboxdev.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hexboxdev.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11363"},{"taxonomy":"service","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hexboxdev.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/service?post=11363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/hexboxdev.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2017-02-mikado.png\")
<\/p>\nHow to DOT<\/h2>\n
\n
The edit cycle<\/h2>\n
\n
How to faster<\/em><\/h2>\n
\nFILEBASE=basename $1 .dot<\/code>
\nDIR=dirname $1<\/code>
\nOUTFILE=”$DIR\/$FILEBASE.png”
\ndot -Tpng -o$OUTFILE $INFILE
\nopen –background $OUTFILE<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nGreat, but now what?<\/h2>\n
\n