**Edit this Page** [](https://github.com/mermaid-js/mermaid/blob/develop/docs/README.md)
:trophy: **Mermaid was nominated and won the [JS Open Source Awards (2019)](https://osawards.com/javascript/#nominees) in the category "The most exciting use of technology"!!! Thanks to all involved, people committing pull requests, people answering questions and special thanks to Tyler Long who is helping me maintain the project.**
__mermaid is a Javascript based diagramming and charting tool that uses markdown-inspired text definitions and a renderer to create and modify complex diagrams. The main purpose of mermaid is to help Documentation catch up with Development .__
**mermaid addresses this problem by cutting the time, effort and tooling that is required to create modifiable diagrams and charts, for smarter and more reusable content.**
The text definitions for mermaid diagrams allows for it to be updated easily, it can also be made part of production scripts (and other pieces of code). So less time needs be spent on documenting, as a separate and laborious task.
## Even non-programmers can create diagrams through the [Mermaid Live Editor](https://github.com/mermaidjs/mermaid-live-editor).
## You can watch some popular mermaid Live Editor tutorials on [mermaid Overview](./n00b-overview.md) for a quick intro.
## To use mermaid with your favorite applications, check out the list of [Integrations and Usages of Mermaid](./integrations.md)**
## For a more detailed introduction to mermaid and some of it's more basic uses, look to the [Beginner's Guide](https://mermaid-js.github.io/mermaid/#/n00b-overview) and [Usage](./usage.md).
With version 8.4 class diagrams have got some new features, bug fixes and documentation. Another new feature in 8.4 is the new diagram type, state diagrams.
In version 8.2 a security improvement was introduced. A securityLevel configuration was introduced which sets the level of trust to be used on the parsed diagrams.
- **true**: (default) tags in text are encoded, click functionality is disabled
- false: tags in text are allowed, click functionality is enabled
Closed issues:
⚠️ **Note** : This changes the default behaviour of mermaid so that after upgrade to 8.2, if the securityLevel is not configured, tags in flowcharts are encoded as tags and clicking is prohibited.
If your application is taking resposibility for the diagram source security you can set the securityLevel accordingly. By doing this clicks and tags are again allowed.
__The following are some examples of the diagrams, charts and graphs that can be made using mermaid and the Markdown-inspired text specific to it. Click here jump into the [text syntax](https://mermaid-js.github.io/mermaid/#/n00b-syntaxReference).__
Mermaid is a growing community and is always accepting new contributors. There's a lot of different ways to help out and we're always looking for extra hands! Look at [this issue](https://github.com/mermaid-js/mermaid/issues/866) if you want to know where to start helping out.
Detailed information about how to contribute can be found in the [contribution guide](CONTRIBUTING.md)
# Appreciation
A quick note from Knut Sveidqvist:
>*Many thanks to the [d3](http://d3js.org/) and [dagre-d3](https://github.com/cpettitt/dagre-d3) projects for providing the graphical layout and drawing libraries!*
>*Thanks also to the [js-sequence-diagram](http://bramp.github.io/js-sequence-diagrams) project for usage of the grammar for the sequence diagrams. Thanks to Jessica Peter for inspiration and starting point for gantt rendering.*
>*Thank you to [Tyler Long](https://github.com/tylerlong) who has been a collaborator since April 2017.*
>
>*Thank you to the ever-growing list of [contributors](https://github.com/knsv/mermaid/graphs/contributors) that brought the project this far!*
