puml is a collection of tools for PlantUML

PlantUML is an amazing diagramming tool.

puml is a set of tools that makes diagramming with PlantUML easier. It's opinionated and created with my personal needs in mind. However the tool set is generic enough and might be useful for you as well. Simply try it and decide for yourself.

Why?

puml grew naturally from scripts I created for personal diagramming needs. It allows to build a Docker image that includes an official release of PlantUML and following additional components and configuration settings:

• Beautiful fonts Noto (used by default) and Fire Code
• PLANTUML_LIMIT_SIZE environment variable is set to 8192 to enable huge diagrams

Dependencies

• Docker
• entr(1), used in puml watch to monitor for changes in diagram source files

Available tools

PlantUML command-line interface

puml cli

Passes all given command-line arguments to PlantUML CLI.

Local PlantUML server

puml serve

Starts a local PlantUML server available on port 8080.

Diagram render

puml render <path> [<format>]

Generates a diagram image from given PlantUML source file and send it to the standard output.

File watcher

puml watch <path> [<format>]

Uses entr(1) to watch for changes in given PlantUML source file. An output diagram image is updated on each change in the source file.

Installation

Clone the repository:

git clone [email protected]:soulim/puml.git

Install puml by creating a symbolic link to bin/puml (in the following example a symbolic link is created in $HOME/.local/bin/):

ln -sfn $PWD/bin/puml $HOME/.local/bin/puml

Build a local Docker image:

puml build

Test puml (you should see an SVG source code):

cat test.puml | puml cli

Contributing

puml is open to code contributions for bug fixes only. As features might carry a long-term maintenance burden, they will not be accepted at this time. Please submit an issue if you have a feature you would like to request.

License

Copyright (c) 2021-2025 Alexander Sulim

puml is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

See COPYING for license text.