Overview
Diagrams is a dedicated area in Azure Documenter that auto-generates visual maps of your Azure infrastructure. It sits alongside the Documents tab on every document group page and gives you three diagram types, each covering a different layer of your Azure environment.
Unlike documents, diagrams are generated on demand or on a schedule. Each generation is versioned, so you can compare the current state of your infrastructure against any previous snapshot.
Business value
- Visualize your Azure network topology, workload architecture, and resource dependencies without building diagrams manually
- Track infrastructure changes over time using version history on every diagram type
- Generate diagrams on a schedule so your documentation stays current without manual intervention
- Export diagrams as draw.io, PNG, or SVG for use in runbooks, architecture reviews, and stakeholder reports
- Inspect individual resources directly on the canvas without switching to the Azure portal
How it works
Diagrams are managed from the Diagrams tab on any document group page. Each diagram you create is independently configured with its own scope, schedule, and notification settings.
Creating a diagram follows a 5-step wizard: Basics, Azure scope and filters, Schedule, Notifications, and Review. The Basics step is where you select the diagram type. The remaining steps configure what Azure data to pull, when to generate, and who to notify when a generation completes or fails.
The diagram list shows all diagrams in the group. Each row displays the diagram name, type, and a Schedule column that shows either "Manual" or the configured frequency alongside the next scheduled run datetime. A download icon on each row lets you download the latest generated version directly as a draw.io file without opening the diagram.
The interactive canvas opens when you select a diagram. It renders the generated output and lets you apply grouping, use filters to focus on specific resources, and inspect individual nodes to see resource details. You can navigate version history from the canvas to compare the current diagram against any previously generated version.
Actions menu on each diagram row provides: Open, Generate now, Edit, Generation history, and Delete. Generation history shows each past generation with per-channel notification delivery details, so you can confirm whether scheduled notifications reached their intended recipients.
Diagram types
Azure Documenter provides three diagram types.
Network generates a visual map of your VNet topology across the selected Azure scope. It shows virtual networks, subnets, peering connections, and network security groups, giving you a topology view that reflects how your network is actually configured in Azure.
Workload generates an app stack diagram per resource group. It maps compute, storage, and dependent services within each resource group, making it useful for understanding what makes up each workload and how its components relate.
Resource visualizer generates a dependency map using Azure Resource Graph (ARG) queries. It supports cross-subscription scoping and can surface external dependencies that fall outside a single subscription boundary, making it the right choice for architectures that span subscriptions or include non-Azure endpoints.
Export formats
From the canvas, you can export any diagram as draw.io XML, PNG, or SVG. The download icon on the diagram list row provides a one-click shortcut to download the latest version as draw.io without opening the canvas.
Limitations
- Diagram generation time depends on the size and complexity of the Azure scope selected. Large scopes with many resources or cross-subscription dependencies take longer to process.
- Version history is per diagram. Deleting a diagram removes all its generated versions permanently.