Saving, Loading & Export

Strata gives you two complementary ways to keep your work: save to this browser (so you can reopen a diagram in the app later) and export to JSON (a portable, version-controllable file you can share, check into git, or move between browsers).

Save & load in this browser

• Save — click the 💾 icon button in the top bar to store the current diagram. Saved diagrams are kept in this browser’s local storage — there’s no server datastore and no account required, but a diagram saved in one browser won’t appear in another browser or on another machine. While saving, the status line reads “Saving…”, then “Saved “<name>” to this browser.” on success. If the write fails it reads “Save failed: …” with the reason — see Troubleshooting.
• Open — click Open ▾ for a dropdown of your saved diagrams, each showing its name, resource count, and last-updated date. Click one to load it, or the ✕ beside it to delete it. (Your saved diagrams also appear in the Start hub under + New, in the Open a saved diagram list.)

Saved diagrams are stamped with creation and update times automatically, so the most recently edited ones surface first.

Diagram names. A diagram isn’t named at save time — there’s no name prompt. A new, never-named diagram is saved with the name “AWS Architecture”; an imported diagram keeps the name from its source file. Tell saves apart by their resource count and last-updated date in the Open ▾ list.

Unsaved-work guard. Loading or importing a diagram replaces what’s on the canvas. If you have unsaved changes, Strata asks first with the “Replace the current diagram?” dialog — Save & continue, Discard & continue, or Cancel — so you never lose work by accident.

Export & import JSON

For a portable copy you fully control:

• Export JSON — from the Data ▾ menu, downloads the current diagram as a single JSON file. This is the complete diagram-as-code: every resource, its configuration, and every typed relationship.
• Import JSON — from the Data ▾ menu (or the Start hub’s Import Strata JSON card), loads a diagram from a JSON file you previously exported, replacing what’s currently on the canvas.

Because the export is plain JSON, you can commit it to a repository, diff it across versions, move it between browsers, or hand it to a teammate — it isn’t locked into a proprietary datastore. JSON export/import is also the way to move a diagram from one browser’s local storage to another.

The JSON export is the same diagram-as-code Strata persists internally, so an exported file round-trips cleanly back through Import JSON.

Export as an image, or share a link

Two more ways to get a diagram out, both under the Data ▾ menu:

• Export PNG image / Export SVG image — download a picture of the current canvas (raster PNG or vector SVG), handy for embedding in docs, slides, or a README.
• Copy share link — copies a self-contained URL to your clipboard. The whole diagram is packed into the link itself (the #g=… fragment) with no server involved, so opening the link in any browser loads the diagram ready to edit. Because the entire graph rides in the URL, it’s best for reasonably-sized diagrams; for very large ones prefer Export JSON. (A link is also fully portable across machines, unlike a browser-saved diagram.)

Version history (local snapshots)

Data ▾ → Version history… keeps point-in-time snapshots of a diagram in this browser:

• Save version — label and snapshot the current diagram.
• Restore — load an earlier snapshot back onto the canvas (behind the same unsaved-work guard).
• Compare — diff the current canvas against a snapshot; this runs through Drift Detection, so you get the green/amber badges and the cost delta against that version.

Snapshots live in this browser’s local storage (a bounded ring of the most recent 25, newest first), separate from named Save / Open diagrams and from JSON files. They’re great for “checkpoint before a big change”, but — like browser saves — they don’t travel between browsers or machines.

Start over

Choose Clear canvas from the Data ▾ menu to empty the canvas. If you clear by accident, Undo (⌘Z / Ctrl Z) brings it back.

Which should I use?