# Canvas

A canvas is an infinite whiteboard for thinking in space: research walls, architecture maps, moodboards, meeting captures. Where most whiteboards hold dead copies, an Undra canvas holds your real, live items, so a note or plan you drop on the board stays in sync with its source.

A canvas isn't a picture *of* your workspace. It's a working view *into* it: arrange your actual notes and plans, and they stay editable and connected wherever they appear.

## Live, not a snapshot

- **Embeds are the real thing.** A note or plan you drop on the board is the live item, not a screenshot. Edit it on the canvas and the file updates. Edit the file and the card updates.
- **One source of truth.** The same note can sit on three canvases and in ten wikilinks, and there's still only one note underneath.

## What you can drop

- **Sticky cards** for plain text or Markdown
- **Note embeds**, a full, editable [note](/docs/workspace/notes/) in place
- **Plan embeds**, a live [plan](/docs/workspace/plans/) that stays in sync
- **Image nodes** from your media library
- **Groups**, coloured frames that hold and move a set of nodes together
- **Freehand strokes**, a pencil for diagrams and annotations
- **Web embeds** for a URL or an embedded browser tab

## Connect what relates

Drag from one node's edge to another to draw an edge. Each one supports:

- arrows on one or both ends
- a short label on the line
- styles: solid, dashed, dotted
- routing: curved, orthogonal, or straight

## Find your way around

1. **Pan** by dragging with the middle mouse button, and **zoom** with `Ctrl + Scroll`.
2. **Double-click** an empty spot to drop a card.
3. **Double-click** an embedded note to edit it right there.
4. Drag from a card's edge onto another to connect them, then click the label to name the relationship.

## Common uses

- **A system map.** Embed the brief and the launch plan side by side, frame the user-facing and behind-the-scenes pieces in coloured groups, and draw the arrows between them.
- **A research wall.** Sticky cards and image nodes for everything you're gathering, pulled into clusters as themes emerge.
- **A low-stakes idea board.** A scratch canvas for unsorted thinking. Promote things into real notes and plans only when they earn it.

## Under the hood

Canvases are `.ucanvas` files: a small YAML header, then a JSON graph (`undra_canvas_v1`) of `nodes` and `edges`. Embeds reference items by id (`noteEmbed`, `planEmbed`), which is exactly why they stay live. Nothing is trapped in a proprietary blob, so the file is readable and versionable like everything else.

Here's the real **Phoenix System map** from the [interactive demo](/demo/), trimmed to a few nodes: a note and a plan embedded side by side, joined by a labelled edge.

```file="Phoenix System map.ucanvas"
---
id: oKaA8wve
tags: [phoenix, architecture, diagram]
created_at: "2026-04-01T12:00:00.000Z"
updated_at: "2026-05-02T03:28:00Z"
---

{
  "version": "undra_canvas_v1",
  "nodes": [
    { "id": "title", "type": "text", "x": 80, "y": 40, "width": 520, "height": 120,
      "text": "# Phoenix: System map", "fontSize": 22 },
    { "id": "brief", "type": "noteEmbed", "x": 100, "y": 260, "width": 340, "height": 220,
      "noteId": "FXwXtJHo", "title": "Project Phoenix: Brief" },
    { "id": "plan", "type": "planEmbed", "x": 460, "y": 260, "width": 340, "height": 220,
      "planId": "WiVfqVGl", "title": "Launch plan" }
  ],
  "edges": [
    { "id": "e1", "fromNode": "brief", "toNode": "plan", "label": "informs",
      "arrowEnd": "arrow", "edgeStyle": "curve" }
  ]
}
```

:::tip Nothing to save
A canvas persists every pan, zoom, and new node the moment you make it. Close the tab and reopen, and everything is exactly where you left it.
:::

## Where to go next

- **[Notes](/docs/workspace/notes/)**: what most canvas cards point back to.
- **[Plans](/docs/workspace/plans/)**: embed live work, not a status screenshot.
- **[Undraverse](/docs/undraverse/groups-and-presets/)**: see the same connections as a graph.