Deployment Views (DSL)

Deployment views show the runtime infrastructure and where your software containers are deployed.

Deployment model

Before creating a deployment view, define the deployment topology in your model:

model {
  system = softwareSystem "My System" {
    api = container "API" "REST API" "Node.js"
    db = container "Database" "Data storage" "PostgreSQL"
  }

  deploymentEnvironment "Production" {
    deploymentNode "AWS" "Amazon Web Services" {
      deploymentNode "ECS" "Elastic Container Service" {
        containerInstance api
      }
      deploymentNode "RDS" "Relational Database Service" {
        containerInstance db
      }
    }
  }

  deploymentEnvironment "Development" {
    deploymentNode "Local Machine" {
      deploymentNode "Docker" {
        containerInstance api
        containerInstance db
      }
    }
  }
}

Deployment view syntax

views {
  deployment system "Production" "ProdView" {
    include *
    autoLayout
  }

  deployment * "Development" "DevView" {
    include *
    autoLayout
  }
}

Scoping

Parameter	Description
Software system	Which system’s containers to show. Use `*` for all systems.
Environment	Which deployment environment to render (must match a `deploymentEnvironment` name).

Key elements

DSL keyword	Purpose
`deploymentEnvironment`	Defines a named environment (e.g., Production, Staging, Development)
`deploymentNode`	Infrastructure: server, VM, container host, cloud service
`infrastructureNode`	Network infrastructure: load balancer, firewall, CDN
`softwareSystemInstance`	An instance of a software system deployed to a node
`containerInstance`	An instance of a container deployed to a node

Nesting

Deployment nodes can be nested to represent infrastructure hierarchies:

deploymentNode "AWS" {
  deploymentNode "us-east-1" {
    deploymentNode "VPC" {
      deploymentNode "ECS Cluster" {
        containerInstance api
      }
      infrastructureNode "ALB" "Application Load Balancer"
    }
  }
}

Properties and metadata

Deployment nodes support descriptions, technology labels, and properties:

deploymentNode "Web Server" "Serves the frontend" "Nginx" {
  properties {
    "Instance Type" "t3.medium"
    "Count" "3"
  }
  containerInstance webapp
}

Multiple environments

Define separate environments to show how the same system is deployed differently:

deploymentEnvironment "Production" {
  deploymentNode "AWS" { ... }
}

deploymentEnvironment "Staging" {
  deploymentNode "AWS" { ... }
}

deploymentEnvironment "Development" {
  deploymentNode "Docker Compose" { ... }
}

Each environment gets its own deployment view.