mapgen — generate draw.io map fragments from a text DSL + translations

The roadmap map is maintained as a rigid text source plus per-language translation files, with draw.io as the output format.

Layout. roadmap/ holds the real map source: structure.dsl (the structure), en/ru/zh/es.tsv (the words), and chrome.tsv (the title/legend/date blocks). build.py turns those into roadmap/<lang>.drawio.svg — a gitignored build artifact — and --deploy copies each one over its live map at <Lang>/Graph/roadmap.drawio.svg. The rebuild is local (CI has no draw.io), but mapcheck’s map-vs-DSL check fails the PR if a committed map has drifted from this source, so a forgotten rebuild is caught in review.

roadmap/words.tsv sits alongside them but is not build input — it is a bootstrap bridge (word-id → the original EN draw.io id), used only by bootstrap/.

Why

The map had lived as three hand-maintained .drawio.svg files (RU/EN/ZH, soon +ES) — which mapgen now generates. Two recurring pains motivated the switch:

Idea: keep one language-neutral structure, put the text in per-language files, and generate the draw.io per language. The structure is fixed rigidly; only the physical layout (x, width, routing, frame size) is computed per language.

How it works

flowchart LR
    subgraph SRC["source (hand-edited, language-neutral)"]
        DSL["<b>structure.dsl</b><br/>tree, grades, stages,<br/>hints, spine"]
        TSV["<b>en.tsv / ru.tsv / zh.tsv / es.tsv</b><br/>one 'id TAB text' per line"]
        CHR["<b>chrome.tsv</b><br/>title, legend, date geometry"]
    end
    BUILD["<b>build.py</b><br/>computes the physical layout:<br/>text widths, packing,<br/>routing, frame growth"]
    XML["lang.drawio<br/><i>mxGraph XML</i>"]
    SVG["lang.drawio.svg"]
    LIVE["<b>English/Graph/roadmap.drawio.svg</b><br/>Russian/Graph/... Chinese/Graph/..."]
    CHECK["<b>mapcheck</b><br/>runs in CI"]

    DSL --> BUILD
    TSV --> BUILD
    CHR --> BUILD
    BUILD --> XML
    XML -- "draw.io CLI" --> SVG
    SVG -- "--deploy" --> LIVE
    LIVE --> CHECK
    CHECK -. "fails the PR if a committed<br/>map no longer matches the source" .-> DSL

One source, four maps: the same structure.dsl is rendered once per language, so a structural change lands everywhere at once and only the text is per-language.

The DSL fixes the logical layout (rows, order, grade, stage, hint targets, spine sides). The generator computes the physical layout:

Usage

Setup (once)

python tools/mapgen/setup.py --venv

Creates tools/mapgen/.venv, installs Pillow into it, and verifies the two dependencies it cannot install for you — a CJK-capable metrics font and the draw.io desktop app — printing the right command for your OS (winget / brew / snap) when one is missing. Drop --venv to install into the interpreter you ran it with; it warns if that isn’t a virtualenv. Exits non-zero while anything is still missing, so it is safe in a script.

Only the rendering needs draw.io: you can edit structure.dsl / the tsvs with nothing installed, open a PR, and a maintainer regenerates the maps.

Build

python tools/mapgen/build.py --dir tools/mapgen/roadmap --deploy --check

That one command is the whole edit loop: build all four languages, copy each map over its live <Lang>/Graph/roadmap.drawio.svg (--deploy), then run mapcheck (--check, exits non-zero on a hard error). --check validates the live maps, so without --deploy it reports on the committed ones rather than what was just built — it says which.

Dependency checks are not optional and run before anything is built: Pillow, a metrics font, the draw.io CLI, structure.dsl and every <lang>.tsv. All problems are reported at once with install hints, so a missing dependency — or a virtualenv you forgot to activate — surfaces immediately instead of after a slow build. Drop --deploy to leave the output next to the source and inspect it first.

--dir holds structure.dsl and one <lang>.tsv per language. Output <lang>.drawio + <lang>.drawio.svg land next to them (override with --outdir). The .drawio is a real draw.io file — open it to inspect, but edits there are lost on regeneration (see Caveats).

Flags: --langs en,ru,zh,es, --deploy, --check, --outdir <dir>, --repo-root <dir>, --drawio-cli <path>, --font <path> (metrics font, default msyh.ttc / Noto CJK), --font-family "<name>" (written into the map). The draw.io CLI and the font are autodetected per platform (Windows/macOS/Linux) and via PATH.

Tests: python tools/mapgen/test_build.py covers the deterministic pieces — the DSL parser (attributes + side/stage inheritance), text wrapping, coordinate formatting, and the hint geometry/arrow math — with no draw.io or Pillow needed (metrics are injected). It runs in CI. The layout functions (assign_y/layout_x/centering) live inside build_lang and aren’t unit-tested yet; the map-level guard for those is mapcheck (overlaps + map-vs-DSL).

DSL grammar

A line-based text format. # starts a comment. Blank lines ignored.

A complete, minimal map

Everything below is optional detail; this is a whole working source. Two files — the structure, and the words for one language:

# structure.dsl
spine center=me

[fundamentals] side=right grade=junior stage=1
  [syntax] grade=junior
  [pointers] grade=middle
[tooling] side=left grade=junior stage=1
  [debugger] grade=junior
  [profiler] grade=optional

hint [start-here] angle=90 dist=140 arrow=bottom -> syntax

# en.tsv   (id, then a TAB, then the text)
me	Me
fundamentals	Fundamentals
syntax	Syntax
pointers	Pointers
tooling	Tooling
debugger	Debugger
profiler	Profiler
start-here	Start here, then work outwards.
stage1	1 step

python tools/mapgen/build.py --dir path/to/that/folder --langs en

Note stage1 in the tsv: stage frames take their title from the stage1..stage5 keys. Add ru.tsv / zh.tsv / es.tsv with the same ids and --langs en,ru,zh,es renders all four.

What the DSL renders as

A worked example — this is the real Debugger branch. Six source lines plus a hint:

      [debugger] grade=junior
        [understanding-of-debugger-messages] grade=junior
        [debugging-symbols] grade=junior
        [windbg] grade=optional
        [gdb] grade=optional
        [lldb] grade=optional

hint [the-ability-to-work] angle=3 dist=464 arrow=left -> windbg, gdb, lldb

…become this (colours are the real grade palette; the dashed arrows are the hint):

flowchart LR
    DBG["<b>Debugger</b>"]
    U["Understanding of<br/>debugger messages"]
    S["Debugging symbols"]
    W["WinDbg"]
    G["GDB"]
    L["LLDB"]
    HINT["<i>The ability to work with a debugger<br/>via command line is a not common<br/>skill. It's sufficient to work with it<br/>via IDE...</i>"]

    DBG --> U
    DBG --> S
    DBG --> W
    DBG --> G
    DBG --> L
    HINT -. "arrow=left" .-> W
    HINT -.-> G
    HINT -.-> L

    classDef junior fill:#96BB7C,stroke:#5f7d4b,color:#000
    classDef optional fill:#CCEEFF,stroke:#7fa6ba,color:#000
    classDef hint fill:#FFD5E4,stroke:#c79aab,color:#000
    class DBG,U,S junior
    class W,G,L optional
    class HINT hint

Reading it back:

in the DSL in the map
indentation parent → child; children stack downward next to their parent
[debugger] the id, never the label — the text comes from the tsvs: Debugger (en), Отладчик (ru), 调试器（Debugger） (zh)
grade=optional the box’s fill colour (light blue here)
stage=3 on an ancestor the whole subtree lands in the grey “3 step” frame
hint [...] -> a, b, c one pink box with a curved arrow to each target
angle / dist where that pink box sits relative to its targets

To add a leaf you touch two files: one indented [my-new-node] grade=middle line in structure.dsl, and one my-new-node<TAB>My New Node row in each of en.tsv, ru.tsv, zh.tsv, es.tsv. Everything else — x position, box width per language, the parent edge, frame growth — is computed. Rebuild, and it appears in all four maps.

Nodes (indentation = hierarchy, 2 spaces per level)

[basic-operations] grade=junior stage=1
  [arithmetic-operations] grade=optional
    [loops-for-while] grade=middle

Hints — hint [id] angle=<deg> dist=<px> arrow=<side> -> target, target, ...

A pink annotation box, text from <lang>.tsv (auto-wrapped, CJK-aware), with a curved arrow to each target. The box is placed at a polar offset from the mean target centre: angle degrees (0 = right, 90 = up) and dist pixels. Example:

hint [the-ability-to-work] angle=3 dist=464 arrow=left -> windbg, gdb, lldb

arrow=left|right|top|bottom is required — it sets which box edge the arrow starts from (e.g. a note above its target uses arrow=bottom). The arrow always ends on the target edge facing the box. extract.py seeds it from the box’s position (the edge facing the target); the build fails if any hint omits it.

Placement is explicit, not auto-laid-out — the generator just puts the box where the coords say. The initial angle/dist were seeded from the hand map during bootstrap, so the notes replay in their hand-tuned positions; you nudge the values by hand in structure.dsl (the source of truth) when a note needs to move. Rows are shared across languages so an offset transfers; only the target’s x shifts with per-language width, carrying the box along. Because box heights and node widths differ per language, one angle/dist has to clear all four — nudge the values until mapcheck reports no overlaps. If omitted, the box defaults to straight right of its target (angle=0), with no overlap avoidance.

Stage frames — automatic from stage=

Nodes carrying a stage=N (inherited by the subtree) are wrapped in a grey #F5F5F5 box grown to fit, one per (section, stage) group — the same banding the hand-drawn map uses. Titles come from the stage1..stage5 tsv keys (1 step / 1 этап / 步骤 1). A gap is inserted between stage bands so the boxes don’t touch. No directive is needed — just annotate the subtree roots.

Explicit frames — frame [id] title=<key> [contains=a,b]

A box drawn behind the nodes, grown to fit. title is a translation key. Without contains, it encloses everything; with it, only those roots’ subtrees.

frame [libs] title=libraries contains=boost,opencv

Spine — spine [center=<id>] [hubx=<x>] [gate=<x>] [header=<key>]

A central trunk; depth-0 nodes become sections hanging off it. Each root is placed on a side with side=left|right (inherited by its subtree, default right): the right half packs rightward from the trunk, the left half packs leftward (mirror). Nodes use local packing — each child sits just right of its own parent — so deep trees stay compact.

spine center=cpp-developer     # bilateral, centre node, computed hub-x
[soft-skills] side=left
  [ability-to-learn]           # subtree inherits side=left
[hard-skills] side=right
  [language-syntax]            # subtree inherits side=right

spine hubx=460 gate=420 header=hardskills   # optional: pinned hub-x + dashed gate guide

Translation files <lang>.tsv

One id <TAB> text per line, UTF-8 (no BOM). A missing id falls back to the id itself. Keys include node ids, chrome roles, and any frame title / spine header keys.

Bootstrapping the source

roadmap/ was reverse-engineered from the original hand-drawn maps — the EN map becomes the word-id structure.dsl + en.tsv + words.tsv + chrome.tsv; ZH and RU are keyed onto the same word-ids. That’s a one-off; the tools live in bootstrap/ and are also how a new language is onboarded. Going forward the DSL is the source — edit structure.dsl / <lang>.tsv directly, never re-derive from a generated map.

For reference, roadmap/ holds the canonical structure.dsl (394 nodes + 34 hints + 25 stage annotations), chrome.tsv (18 static blocks: title, legend, About/How-to/Feedback, repo link, date), en/ru/zh/es.tsv, and words.tsv.

What generates

The whole map, all four languages, from the canonical source: skill tree, hints, stage frames (from stage=), and the top-left chrome — title banner, legend, About/How-to/Feedback, repo link, date. Chrome layout is captured once in chrome.tsv (language-neutral geometry + style); text is per-language in <lang>.tsv. RU is re-keyed onto EN’s word-ids by remap.py (validated clean); EN and ZH share ids natively. Validated by mapcheck — box-fits-text, overlaps, cross-language drift, and a map-vs-DSL check that fails CI if a committed map no longer matches this source (ids, grades, <lang>.tsv text) or a translation is missing.

Caveats & remaining work

See AGENTS.md for the agent/contributor workflow and the map conventions the generator follows (colour legend, stage frames, the “Last updated” date).