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Box of Rain

Auto-Layouted ASCII Diagrams

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HN · launched Feb 14, 2026 · 24 upvotes (top 28%) · 0 views

Niche: diagramming and flowchart tools · 116 launches, 6 in the last 7 days ▼ -50% · Explore this niche →

Category and tags
  • Horizontal
  • Dev tools
  • Developer
  • Not AI
  • Hobby / open-source project

Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗

More like this: all 116 launches in diagramming and flowchart tools →

Could you build this?

Partial Creating a diagramming interface is straightforward, but developing a reliable ASCII auto-layout engine requires complex 2D graph layout algorithms and character-grid constraint solving.

What it would actually take: The core engine requires implementing directed graph layout algorithms (such as Sugiyama-style hierarchical layout or force-directed methods) adapted to a discrete integer grid. It involves custom orthogonal line-routing algorithms (like Lee's algorithm or A* pathfinding on grid lattices) with crossing minimization and edge junction logic to ensure valid ASCII box-drawing characters without overlaps.

Discussion

14 comments analyzed.

Competitors mentioned: Mermaid (for diagram rendering), Relisten (music archiving platform)

Concerns raised: Unicode character width rendering issues across browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Brave), Font substitution/fallback breaking layouts on web, Ambiguous width characters render differently by locale, Right arrow glyph breaks layouts when 2 units wide

Feature requests: Use ASCII characters instead of Unicode box-drawing characters, Change CLI system prompt to 'What do you want me to do?', Support mermaid diagram parsing/rendering

Competitors

Other products that read as similar to this one : 2340 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.

Attention rank: #673 of 2341 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).

Launched 107 days after the earliest competitor.

Related data

The niche, labels, vibe code rating and competitor comparison on this page are analysis by Nicheloom. If you use them, please credit nicheloom.com. How you may use our data.