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.