Filtered Views (DSL)

Filtered views create a subset of an existing view by including or excluding elements based on their tags.

Basic syntax

filtered baseViewKey include "Tag1,Tag2" {
  title "Filtered View Title"
  description "Optional description"
}

Or to exclude:

filtered baseViewKey exclude "Internal" {
  title "External Components Only"
}

Parameters

Parameter	Description
`baseViewKey`	The key of the view to filter
`include` / `exclude`	The filter mode
`"Tag1,Tag2"`	Comma-separated list of tags to match

How filtering works

Include mode — Only elements with at least one of the specified tags are shown.
Exclude mode — Elements with any of the specified tags are hidden; everything else is shown.
Relationships are displayed only when both their source and target are visible after filtering.

Example

Given a system context view with elements tagged Frontend, Backend, and Database:

// Base view
systemContext mySystem "FullContext" {
  include *
  autoLayout
}

// Show only frontend elements
filtered "FullContext" include "Frontend" {
  title "Frontend Components"
}

// Hide internal infrastructure
filtered "FullContext" exclude "Infrastructure" {
  title "Business Services"
}

Inspector properties

In the UI, the Inspector for a filtered view shows:

Base view key — Which view the filter applies to
Filter mode — Include or exclude
Tag list — Tags used for filtering
Title and description
Auto layout — On/off and direction
Layout engine — Default, Graphviz, Dagre, or ELK
Themes — Theme list and custom URLs

Base view visibility

When a filtered view is defined for a base view, the base view may be hidden from the Views panel. This is expected behavior in Structurizr-compatible rendering.

Tips

Use meaningful tags — Tags like Frontend, Backend, External, Critical, PII make filters self-documenting.
Start with include — Include mode is usually clearer and more predictable than exclude mode.
Combine with documentation — Filtered views work well in arc42 documentation to provide focused perspectives.