Flowchart

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A flowchart is the diagram most teams draw first, because almost any process can be written down as steps with a decision or two in the middle. It is also the one most often drawn badly, usually by having every arrow point somewhere different.

In Capable you can draw one on a canvas or write one as text. Both produce a real, editable diagram on the page.

#When to reach for one

  • Documenting a process somebody else will have to follow at 2am.

  • Explaining a decision: what happens when the answer is no, not just when it is yes.

  • Onboarding, where a picture of the happy path saves an hour of explanation.

#How to draw it in Capable

Route

Use when

Mermaid

You want the diagram to diff in review and lay itself out.

draw.io

Position carries meaning, or you need precise shapes and colours.

Excalidraw

It is a sketch for a discussion, not a document.

#A worked example

A support triage flow, written as six lines of text:

Flowchart

The source, which you can paste into a new diagram and edit:

flowchart TD
  A([Ticket raised]) --> B{Customer impact?}
  B -- None --> C[Queue as backlog]
  B -- Some --> D[Assign to on-call]
  D --> E{Fixed in 30 min?}
  E -- Yes --> F([Close and note])
  E -- No --> G[Escalate to engineering]
  G --> F

#A few things that catch people out

  • Arrows that cross are usually a sign the steps are in the wrong order, not that you need a bigger canvas.

  • Label every decision branch. An unlabelled fork is the most common reason a reader guesses wrong.

  • If it will not fit on one screen, split it and link the parts. Nobody reads a flowchart they have to scroll.

Draw the unhappy path too.