Describe it in plain English, get a diagram you can edit
The fastest way to start a diagram is to describe what you want. Type a sentence — "onboarding flow for a new SaaS customer, from sign-up to first value" or "the approval steps for a construction change order" — and the AI diagram generator drafts a graph you can immediately edit. No blank canvas, no dragging boxes one at a time, no account to try it. Generating and viewing are free; the design law here is simple and honest: you gate the save, never the generate.
The important difference from every "AI that draws a diagram" tool is what you get back. Most of them hand you a picture. A picture is finished the moment it appears — to change one step you start over. This tool hands you a living graph: every node is a real card you can rename, re-link, assign an owner to, and extend. The generated diagram is the beginning of your work, not a screenshot you have to redraw.
How to generate a diagram from text
- Open the generator. It runs inside FlowGraph, so the output is a real graph from the first click.
- Describe the process or system. A sentence or two is enough. The more specific you are about the steps and the decisions, the closer the first draft lands.
- Generate. The tool runs your description through FlowGraph's planning engine and lays the result out as a connected graph of steps and relationships.
- Edit and extend. Rename cards, re-wire edges, add the detail that only you know, and keep going with AI once you sign in. The diagram grows with your thinking.
Three honest ways to generate — and what each costs
We are explicit about where your text goes, because that is the honest thing to do and because different people want different trade-offs:
- Bring your own AI key. Add a key in Settings and generation runs through your own provider — the richest, most bespoke results, with no daily limit. Your text goes only to the provider you chose.
- Free hosted generation. With no key, the tool can use FlowGraph's shared model to generate for you. Because that spends a shared key, a fair-use daily cap protects it — when you reach the limit, adding your own key removes it instantly.
- On-device draft. With no key and no connection, the tool still drafts a diagram deterministically on your device, so you are never left with nothing. It is a structural first pass, honestly labelled as a local draft, that you then refine.
You always see which path produced your graph, and the free paths never silently become the paid one. That transparency is the same principle that runs through the whole product: AI proposes, you decide, and every result says what it is.
Why the output being a graph matters
A diagram is most valuable when it keeps working after the first draft. Because the generator produces a real FlowGraph graph, you can:
- drag the layout into the shape that reads best, and recolour or group related steps;
- relabel the relationships between steps, not just the boxes;
- hang real detail on each step — owner, inputs, outputs, a note, a checklist — so the diagram carries the substance of the work;
- link it to your other canvases so a generated process connects to the systems and people it touches;
- ask the graph questions and extend it with AI, turning a one-shot generation into a map you maintain.
That is the payoff of "not a picture": the thing you generate in ten seconds is the thing you are still using in a month.
What to describe
The generator is domain-agnostic, so it works for onboarding flows, incident-response runbooks, data pipelines, org processes, product roadmaps, and construction workflows alike. If you are not sure how to phrase it, start with the outcome you want and the major steps to get there; the tool fills in the structure and you correct the details. And because editing is free, there is no penalty for generating a rough first pass and shaping it by hand.
A few patterns produce the sharpest first drafts. Name the start and the end explicitly — "from sign-up to first value", "from raw data to a published dashboard" — so the generator anchors the flow. Call out the decisions ("if approved… otherwise…"), because branches are where a diagram earns its keep. And keep each description to one process at a time; if you are mapping something large, generate the pieces separately and link them, exactly as you would build any graph by hand.
Honest by design
The same principles that run through FlowGraph apply here: nothing is presented as more than it is. A local draft is labelled a draft, a hosted generation says so, and a rate limit tells you plainly when you have reached it rather than silently degrading. AI proposes and you decide — the generator hands you a starting point, and you stay in control of what the diagram becomes.
Related free tools
Already have a diagram as text? The Mermaid to FlowGraph converter turns the Mermaid ChatGPT and Claude emit into an editable graph, entirely in your browser. Working with building models? The free online IFC viewer opens IFC files with no upload. Prefer a proven starting point? Browse the FlowGraph templates. When you are ready, open the generator and describe your first diagram.