erdlens
MCP server that reads your database schema from SQL DDL, Prisma, Drizzle, TypeORM, or SQLAlchemy, generates a Mermaid ER diagram, and writes it into your documentation, with drift detection to keep diagrams up-to-date.
README
<p align="center"> <img src="assets/logo.svg" alt="erdlens" width="96" height="96" /> </p>
<h1 align="center">erdlens</h1>
<p align="center"><b>Your schema becomes an ER diagram, straight into your docs. And it tells you when the diagram goes stale.</b></p>
<p align="center"> 🇺🇸 English · <a href="README.id.md">🇮🇩 Bahasa Indonesia</a> · <a href="README.zh-CN.md">🇨🇳 简体中文</a> </p>
<p align="center"> <img alt="license" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/license-MIT-6C8EEF" /> <img alt="runtime deps" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/runtime%20deps-0-6C8EEF" /> <img alt="tests" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/tests-57%20passing-6C8EEF" /> <img alt="mcp" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/MCP-server-6C8EEF" /> <img alt="typescript" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/TypeScript-MVVM-6C8EEF" /> </p>
<p align="center"> <img src="assets/showcase.gif" alt="erdlens turning a schema into an ER diagram, a workflow into a flowchart, and catching drift after a migration" width="720" /> </p>
You ask Claude Code to document your database. It writes the doc, you generate an ER diagram in some other tool, then you copy-paste the diagram back in. Two tools, double work, and the moment someone runs a migration the diagram in the doc is quietly wrong.
erdlens is an MCP server that closes that loop. Claude Code reads your schema, turns it into a Mermaid ER diagram, and writes it into the document in one pass. No second tool, no copy-paste. And it can check later whether that diagram still matches the schema.
Why it's different
The existing diagram MCP servers render Mermaid you already wrote. erdlens starts a step earlier: it reads the schema for you, and a step later: it watches for drift.
| render your Mermaid | read the schema | write into the doc | drift-check | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| mermaid-preview MCPs | ✅ | ❌ | partial | ❌ |
| mermerd (CLI, not MCP) | ❌ | ✅ (DB only) | ❌ | ❌ |
| erdlens | ✅ | ✅ (5 sources) | ✅ | ✅ |
Schema sources: SQL DDL, Prisma, Drizzle, TypeORM, SQLAlchemy — file or text, auto-detected.
Install (Claude Code)
claude mcp add erdlens -- npx -y github:ryanda9910/erdlens
Or point at a local clone:
git clone https://github.com/ryanda9910/erdlens
claude mcp add erdlens -- node /abs/path/to/erdlens/bin/erdlens.js
Then just ask Claude Code: "document the database and put an ER diagram in docs/schema.md". It calls
render_erd and the diagram lands in the file.
Tools
| tool | what it does |
|---|---|
schema_to_erd |
schema (path or text) → Mermaid erDiagram + a ```mermaid fenced block to paste anywhere |
render_erd |
writes the ERD to disk: .mmd source, an embeddable .md, and a self-contained .html preview — so it goes straight into a doc, no copy-paste |
drift_check |
compares an ERD already in a .mmd/.md against the current schema, and reports every table, column, and relation added or removed since. Run it in CI so a stale diagram fails the build |
workflow_to_diagram |
a workflow spec (a tiny text DSL or JSON steps) → Mermaid flowchart + fenced block. Document a process, pipeline, or state machine next to the ERD |
render_workflow |
same as render_erd, for workflows — writes the flowchart to disk, embeddable |
The drift check
This is the part that keeps docs honest. After a migration:
$ erdlens drift docs/schema.md db/schema.sql
Diagram is stale. It drifted from the current schema:
+ tables added since: audit_logs
~ posts: +published +slug
+ relations added: posts->users
Regenerate with render_erd to fix.
Exit code is non-zero when stale, so it drops into a CI step or a pre-commit hook.
Workflows too
Not just data. Give it a workflow and it draws the flowchart — same "into your docs" path.
# publish.flow
start -> draft
draft -> review
review -> publish : approved
review -> draft : changes
publish -> done
erdlens flow publish.flow
flowchart TD
start(["start"])
...
review -->|approved| publish
review -->|changes| draft
Ask Claude Code "put the publish workflow in docs/flow.md" and it calls render_workflow.
Also a CLI
Without an MCP client:
erdlens erd db/schema.sql # print the Mermaid ERD
erdlens erd prisma/schema.prisma # auto-detects Prisma
erdlens flow pipeline.flow # print a Mermaid flowchart
erdlens drift docs/erd.mmd db/schema.sql # exit 1 if drifted
erdlens tune # run the self-check loop (below)
Self-improving loop
erdlens tune is a maker → checker → reflect loop: it runs every parser on a fixture plus a drift
scenario (maker), an independent grader flags anything that passed before and fails now (checker),
and it persists per-source pass state to ~/.erdlens/memory.json (reflect). It's how the parsers stay
honest as new schema dialects get added — a regression surfaces instead of slipping through.
Tests
npm test # builds, then 57 assertions: 24 schema engine + 14 workflow + 19 MCP stdio
There's also an end-to-end script that drives the whole thing through a real Claude Code run
(bash test/e2e.sh, needs the claude CLI logged in).
How it's built
TypeScript, laid out MVVM:
- Model (
src/model/) — pure logic: schema parsers, workflow parser, drift diff, types. - ViewModel (
src/viewmodel/) — orchestration: the tool operations and the self-improving loop. - View (
src/view/) — surfaces: the JSON-RPC MCP server, the CLI, and Mermaid/HTML rendering.
Zero runtime dependencies. The MCP server is a from-scratch JSON-RPC stdio implementation; the HTML preview loads Mermaid from a CDN only when you open it in a browser.
License
MIT
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