# design-first/system-designer

A low-code development platform for creating systems 🇺🇦#standwithUkraine

Repository: https://github.com/design-first/system-designer
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/system-designer
Homepage: https://designfirst.io/systemdesigner/
Language: HTML
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: ide, uml, model, metamodel, system, schema, javascript, low-code, mson
Last push: 2026-01-07T16:39:05+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 59/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 61, release rhythm 33, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3882, "days_push": 238, "days_rel": 238, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 1}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1079, forks 160 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:30.242542+00:00)

## What it is
System Designer is a low-code development platform for designing systems using UML models stored in a JSON format called MSON. It lets you visually create models and components, generate code skeletons, run systems, and export them to HTML, JSON, JavaScript, Node.js modules, or Graphviz files.

## Use cases
- design system architecture with UML models
- generate JavaScript class skeletons from a model
- create components visually without coding
- model domain entities and relationships in JSON
- debug and inspect a running system's model
- export a system design to HTML or Node.js module
- define schemas with properties, links, and collections

## When to choose
- you want a model-driven, low-code approach to building JavaScript systems
- you prefer designing with UML and standard notations over framework-specific code
- you need to visually create and manage components like documents in a NoSQL database
- you want dynamic type checking against a defined model
- you need to export designs to multiple formats including Graphviz diagrams

## When to avoid
- you need a full-featured production IDE for large codebases
- your project relies on frameworks with their own model definitions incompatible with MSON
- you need team collaboration or version control features built into the tool
- you require support for languages other than JavaScript/Node.js

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: active
- function: developer-tools, gui, documentation, serialization
- domain: developer-tools, web-development, simulation
- platform: cross-platform, windows
- tags: low-code, uml, mson, ide, model-driven-development, odm, system-design, visual-modeling, software-architecture, web, macos, linux, nodejs

## Member repositories
- design-first/system-designer (main) score 59

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:30.242542+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T06:53:03.270692+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/design-first/system-designer (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:30.242542+00:00, sha 0b5d3acbad10)
  - homepage: https://designfirst.io/systemdesigner/ (fetched 2026-08-29T12:54:02.333382+00:00, sha 00eea5c3a90b)
  - site_page: https://designfirst.io/systemdesigner/documentation/docs/en/what-is-system-designer.html (fetched 2026-08-29T12:54:02.335833+00:00, sha 818264e2e1cf)
  - site_page: https://designfirst.io/systemdesigner/documentation/docs/en/quick-start.html (fetched 2026-08-29T12:54:02.337469+00:00, sha 6a648ac05c5e)
  - site_page: https://designfirst.io/systemruntime/documentation/docs/en/design-your-model.html (fetched 2026-08-29T12:54:02.344942+00:00, sha 32374ff2fc5b)
  - site_page: https://designfirst.io/systemdesigner/documentation/docs/en/license.html (fetched 2026-08-29T12:54:02.347055+00:00, sha 1c1a846a80b4)
  - site_page: https://designfirst.io/systemdesigner/documentation/docs/en/who-is-behind-system-designer.html (fetched 2026-08-29T12:54:02.349055+00:00, sha 4b2b8311fb2c)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.