The graph board

Talk to Claude in diagrams. graph is the first unique: a dark-violet node/edge board where you draw the thing you mean while you chat, and the companion (Doto) reads, points, suggests and edits the same board.

Install

It comes with lets: graph is listed in the engine's defaults.json, so the engine installs it into ~/.lets/uniques/graph the first time it runs. Then:

/lets graph             # or /lets:lets graph without the alias

Manual: /lets store graph (inspect → confirm), or clone the repo into ~/.lets/uniques/graph.

What you can do

• Double-click to add a node; drag from a node's glowing dot (or select one and Shift+click another) to connect; double-click a label to rename; marquee-select; undo, redo, delete.
• Toolbar: add per kind, connect mode, tree / grid / radial auto-layout, fit, new, Send to Claude, Ask, chat, companion, ? shortcuts.
• Paste or drop a screenshot: it becomes an image node and Claude gets the file path. If it shows a sketch or a whiteboard, Claude offers to turn it into connected nodes.
• Ask a one-line question about the selection (or the whole board) with Ask; Claude answers in chat and highlights the nodes it talks about.
• Everything persists locally per window and survives reloads.

Node kinds

Keys 1–5 change the kind of the selection.

Mouse & keyboard

Doto on the board

Right-click summons or dismisses Doto. Click him for questions about what you selected or hovered: Explain this, What's missing around …?, Suggest what comes next, Break it into steps, Critique it, Better name?. On empty space he asks about the whole board: What do you see?, Suggest a structure, Review the flow. Each one becomes a graph.ask with the node ids and labels.

Doto points and pitches in; he never nags. He can roll over to a node and say one line ("This branch never ends."), and Claude speaks at most once per thing you do. While you are drawing, he stays quiet and waits for Send, Ask or a chat message.

With 0.4.0 the board also plays a few expressions: a wink when you connect two nodes, a cheer on Send to Claude. new in 0.4.0

Send to Claude & resume new in 0.4.0

Send to Claude hands the board over: the engine saves it as a session, the window says goodbye and closes, and Claude answers in the Claude Code chat with a summary, the gaps it sees, and additions you can say yes to. Say continue (or /lets graph resume) and the board comes back as you left it, with Claude's agreed suggestions drawn in.

The manifest's session block is what lets the engine save and resume boards:

"session": { "export": "graph.export", "snapshot": "graph.snapshot", "restore": "graph.load" }

If you set "handoff": "stay" in ~/.lets/config.json, the window stays open and Claude reviews right on the board instead.

The board's data

{ rev, nodes: [{ id, label, kind, x, y, w, h, color?, text?, image?, meta? }],
       edges: [{ id, from, to, label?, kind? }],
       viewport: { x, y, zoom } }

x, y is a node's top-left in graph units. Edge kinds: dashed, dotted, bold, muted. Generated ids look like n_ab12c / e_x81qz.

Events (up)

Commands (down)

Every graph-changing command animates (300 ms) and goes on your undo stack, so you can Ctrl+Z anything Claude did.

// add: omit x/y to auto-place; "near" grows it out of that node
{"type":"graph.node.add","data":{"label":"Validate input","kind":"step","near":"n_ab12c"}}
{"type":"graph.edge.add","data":{"from":"n_a","to":"n_c","label":"no","kind":"dashed"}}
{"type":"graph.annotate","data":{"id":"n_b","text":"Retries need a backoff cap."}}
{"type":"graph.highlight","data":{"ids":["n_a","e_x81qz"],"color":"#6bf0ff","ttl":4000}}

Inline cards: component.create with slot:"inline" puts a card on the canvas, beside a node with props.near. An options card next to a decision works well.

Claude's etiquette

The board's GUIDE.md is what Claude reads when it opens the board. Its promises, in short:

• Animate, don't teleport. A few small, visible commands (add, connect, highlight) instead of one silent rewrite.
• Never rearrange your layout without asking. That covers auto-layout, moving your nodes, replacing the board and clearing it. Placing new nodes near yours is fine.
• Labels of six words or fewer. Detail goes into the node's text or an annotation.
• Point while talking. Highlight the nodes it mentions, one idea at a time.
• Respect undo. If you undo or delete something Claude added, that's a "no", and it won't re-add it.
• If something is ambiguous, ask one short question instead of guessing big.

More: lets-unique-graph has the full GUIDE.md, the build contract (CONTRACT.md) and JSON Schemas for the graph document and messages.