Flowchart Skill

A wall of prose describing a process is hard to follow; a flowchart makes the steps, branches, and dead-ends obvious at a glance. This skill turns a described process into a clean, correctly-structured Mermaid flowchart — with real decision diamonds, parallel paths, and end states — not a vague box-and-arrow sketch.

Required Inputs

Ask for these only if they aren't already provided:

• The process — what happens, roughly in order (steps, who does what).
• Decision points — where the path branches, and on what condition.
• Start and end states — where it begins and the possible outcomes (success, rejection, error).
• Direction preference (optional) — top-down (TD) for most processes, left-right (LR) for pipelines.

If the process is ambiguous, state the assumption you made rather than inventing steps.

Output Format

[Process name] — flowchart

A one-line summary of what the chart shows.

flowchart TD
    A([Start]) --> B[First step]
    B --> C{Decision?}
    C -->|Yes| D[Path A]
    C -->|No| E[Path B]
    D --> F([Done])
    E --> F

Legend / notes

• Rounded nodes ([ ]) = start/end, rectangles [ ] = actions, diamonds { } = decisions.
• Call out any swimlane/owner, SLA, or branch that needs attention.

Assumptions — anything you inferred about the process.

Mermaid Rules (so it renders)

• Start with flowchart TD (or LR). Give every node a short ID (A, step1) and a label.
• Decisions are { } with labelled edges: C -->|Yes| D.
• Keep labels short; put detail in the notes, not inside the node.
• Avoid unescaped parentheses/quotes inside labels — they break parsing. Use plain text.
• One concept per node; don't cram a sentence into a box.

Quality Checks

• Every decision diamond has all its branches labelled and leading somewhere (no dangling paths)
• There is a clear start and at least one explicit end state
• Node shapes are used meaningfully (action vs decision vs start/end)
• The Mermaid block is syntactically valid and renders without edits
• Assumptions about ambiguous steps are stated, not silently invented

Anti-Patterns

• Do not produce a linear chain when the real process has branches — capture the decisions
• Do not stuff full sentences into nodes — keep labels short, move detail to notes
• Do not leave a decision with only one labelled branch — show what happens on every condition
• Do not use parentheses or quotes inside labels in a way that breaks Mermaid
• Do not invent steps to fill gaps — flag what you assumed

Based On

Process mapping / flowcharting practice (ANSI flowchart conventions), expressed as renderable Mermaid.