io.nowline/nowline

Roadmaps as code. For everyone.
Human readable roadmaps, built for AI.
Plain .nowline text files. Version-controlled. Render to SVG, PNG, PDF, HTML, Mermaid, XLSX, and MS Project XML.

What is Nowline?

Nowline is a text-first DSL for describing product and engineering roadmaps — human readable and machine readable. You write plain .nowline text files — indented, keyword-driven, diff-friendly — and tooling renders them as timelines, validates them, and composes them.

examples/minimal.nowline:

nowline v1

roadmap minimal "Starter" start:2026-01-05 scale:2w author:"Jane Doe"

swimlane engineering "Engineering"
  item research "Research"  duration:3w status:done
  item design   "Design"    duration:2w status:in-progress remaining:5d
  item build    "Build"     duration:3w status:planned

Renders to:

Why Nowline?

• Text, not a Gantt chart. Version-controlled, diffable, reviewable in a PR.
• Indentation, not XML. Roadmaps read like outlines, because that's how people think about them.
• Strict enough to catch mistakes. 30+ validation rules, clear error messages with line and column numbers.
• Composable. include other files with explicit merge / ignore / isolate semantics.

Quick start

Install the CLI from your package manager:

brew trust lolay/tap                                 # macOS / Linux / WSL (one-time)
brew install lolay/tap/nowline

Debian/Ubuntu and Windows users can grab the latest .deb or .exe from GitHub Releases. See packages/cli/README.md for the full install matrix (including man nowline setup).

Toolchain

Two-tier Node policy: Node ≥ 22 to consume @nowline/* packages (engines.node on every published package), Node 26 (.nvmrc) to develop. CI tests both versions on every PR. See Toolchain & Supported Versions for the full policy and bump procedure.

Render your first roadmap:

nowline examples/minimal.nowline                     # writes ./minimal.svg
nowline --version

Or scaffold a brand-new file from a template:

nowline --init my-project                            # ./my-project.nowline
nowline --init my-project -t teams                   # ./my-project.nowline (teams template)

For the VS Code / Cursor / VSCodium extension, search Nowline on the VS Code Marketplace or Open VSX.

0.x versioning. nowline is on 0.x.y while we settle the embed surface and IDE expansion. Public APIs may change between minor versions; full SemVer guarantees apply once we ship 1.0. See specs/releasing.md for the version contract.

To run from a checkout for local development (pnpm install && pnpm build), see CONTRIBUTING.md.

Use the CLI

nowline is verbless: rendering is the default. Other operations are flags on the same command.

Render (default)

nowline roadmap.nowline                          # writes ./roadmap.svg
nowline roadmap.nowline -f png                   # writes ./roadmap.png
nowline roadmap.nowline -f pdf                   # writes ./roadmap.pdf
nowline roadmap.nowline -f html                  # writes ./roadmap.html
nowline roadmap.nowline -f mermaid               # writes ./r

... [View full README on GitHub](https://github.com/lolay/nowline#readme)