Link flows to your C4 model

The binding between flows and structure is what makes F4 more than a flowchart. This guide covers four linking mechanisms: C4 node management, C4 bindings, zoom-level reading, and flow-to-flow links.

Manage C4 nodes from the flow editor

You don't have to leave the flow editor to shape the C4 model it binds to. The F4 editor's left sidebar carries a C4 Nodes panel — the same node manager the C4 editor uses. From here you can create a node, add a child, rename, change its element type, reparent it, or delete it, and every change writes the one shared C4 model, so the C4 and deployment views stay in step. The rows are draggable, so you can drag a C4 node onto the canvas to create a lane already bound to it.

Because it's the same model, a container you add here immediately becomes selectable in every lane's and activity's C4 element picker below.

Bind lanes and activities to C4 elements

Every lane and every activity has an optional C4 element field in its form. Bind a lane to the container it represents; bind an activity to the component where it happens. Bound activities show a small colored cue on their card.

Picking a C4 element for an activity — the lane's own element and its children come first

The payoff runs both ways: in the C4 viewer and editor, an element's side panel lists every flow lane and activity bound to it — so from any part of the structure you can jump straight to the behavior it participates in.

And from the flow side, the bound element's card shows where it lives: an Appears on section lists every C4 diagram the element is placed on and every deployment environment that hosts an instance of it, each row a link that jumps straight there. You'll find it in the viewer's side panel when you select a bound lane or activity, and inline in the lane and activity forms in the editor.

Read a flow at any zoom level

The viewer's level buttons — Context / Container / Component / Code — re-render the flow at that C4 granularity. Lanes bound to fine-grained elements fold into their parents; folded steps merge into one card with a count. Each section can also be set to its own level, so one part of the flow can stay detailed while the rest is summarized.

The same flow read at a coarser level — detail folded into counted cards

Editing happens at full detail (Code); the coarser levels are read-only views. If a fold looks wrong, the cause is almost always a missing or wrong C4 binding on a lane — fix the binding, not the flow.

Activities and lanes can carry diagram links to other flows — "the detail of this step lives over there". Linked elements show a drill affordance in the viewer: click to jump to the linked flow. Use links to keep each flow at one abstraction level instead of cramming everything into one diagram.

A lane's drill button jumping to its linked flow

Where next

  • The F4 flow model — why one authored flow beats one drawing per audience.
  • C4 guides — strengthen the structure these flows bind to.