TALA

TALA is Terrastruct's proprietary diagram layout engine, made for D2. TALA is closed-source (for now). This repository is primarily for installation instructions. You can also use this repository to report issues, ask questions, and request features.

To learn more about TALA, please visit https://terrastruct.com/tala.

To compare TALA with other layout engines, please visit https://text-to-diagram.

Installation

Prerequisites

You should install D2 first. TALA is installed as a standalone binary in your path which D2's plugin system calls out to.

Install

MacOS

brew install --cask d2talaplugin

Others

We are working on adding to package managers and a universal install script that'll detect OS's. For now, you can find binaries in the Releases page for Linux, Windows, MacOS, for both AMD and ARM (64-bit for all). Download the appropriate one for your OS to a directory in your path.

Post-install

Check that it was installed properly:

d2 layout tala

It should print out information about TALA. If not, please see troubleshooting steps.

Use TALA

You are now ready to use TALA to layout your diagrams! Specify that D2 should use TALA by setting the environment variable D2_LAYOUT.

D2_LAYOUT=tala d2 in.d2 out.svg

Add API token (optional)

You may skip this step if you are just evaluating.

If you have an API token, copy and paste it into your environment variables. E.g.

export TSTRUCT_TOKEN = "tstruct_..."

License keys

TALA is freely installable and locally runnable for evaluation. You'll need an API token from your Terrastruct account to run it out of evaluation mode. Alternatively, if you don't want to create an account, you can purchase a personal license key for TALA that allows you to run TALA forever with access to updates for 12 months here.

Troubleshooting

TALA not found

which d2talaplugin

If this does not return a directory, then d2talaplugin is not in your path.

echo $PATH

Please move the downloaded binary to one of those locations.

License warning prints even with API token

In the same terminal that you're running d2 on, run

echo $TSTRUCT_TOKEN

If it is not found, then your environment variable has not been set in your shell. Make sure you add it to the appropriate shell config file and source it in the running terminal.

Other

Please open an Issue describing what you're running into and we're happy to help. If you'd like to remain anonymous/private, feel free to email us at info@terrastruct.com

FAQ

Does TALA use the internet?

We do not collect telemetry or use the internet in any way except to ping to check the status of a license. This is only done when necessary, e.g. if you purchased a month subscription, TALA will ping at the end of that month and renew automatically if the subscription is ongoing. If you purchased a year, it won't ping for a year. The only data that's sent in these pings is the API token itself. No diagrams or anything else leaves your computer.