TALA Is Open-Source
Points and comments are a snapshot, not live.
D2's TALA autolayout algorithm is now open-source under MPL-2.0, alongside the announcement.
TALA (Terrastruct's AutoLayout Algorithm) is open-source under MPL-2.0, bundled into D2 v0.9.0. It is an orthogonal layout engine for software architecture diagrams, considering symmetry, median distance, flow, and clustering. It supports custom node positioning and hybrid layouts where some nodes are positioned manually and others automatically. Tradeoffs include randomness, suboptimal DAG layouts, and nonlinear scaling for larger diagrams. Users can try it via `--layout=tala` or on the client-side playground.
Examples compare TALA to Dagre and ELK on diagrams from public d2 files, showing mixed results. The post also demonstrates AI-generated diagrams with custom and partial positioning.
What commenters are saying
The thread is generally positive, with users praising D2 and the move to open-source TALA. One commenter notes TALA does a tidier job on most examples, but the Go queue worker diagram is "spectacularly obfuscated" compared to Dagre and ELK, breaking left-to-right flow. Another appreciates the honest acknowledgment that TALA doesn't handle DAGs well. A user hopes for better autolayout generally, and another plans to add TALA to their own project, Daedalus.
There is minor criticism of TALA's failure to respect directional directives and a complaint about the site's broken layout on iOS Safari. One commenter reflects on the difficulty of layout algorithms, which they find ironic given the product. Another suggests Graphviz users would benefit from a dot-to-d2 converter, but notes TALA is a layout engine, not a format.