Discussions

If you design schemas with a team, you know the questions. Why is this column a varchar? Should orders point at users or customers? Who decided soft deletes were a good idea? The answers are usually buried in old Slack threads and closed PRs, which is to say: gone.

Discussions keeps those conversations on the diagram itself. Right-click a table, start a thread, hash it out, hit Resolve when it's settled. The reasoning stays anchored to the table it's about, where the next person will actually find it.

The whole team can weigh in, too. Hand your PM or data analyst comment-only access and they can start threads, reply, and resolve, but never touch the schema itself. And resolved threads stick around as a running record of what was decided and why.

Starting a thread

1. Right-click any table, group, or sticky note on the canvas and choose Discuss (or press Cmd+Shift+; with the node selected).

2. Type your message. The first message doubles as the thread's preview in the Discussions panel.

3. Press Cmd+Enter (Ctrl+Enter on Windows/Linux), or click Start.

Or start from the panel: open it with the Discussions button in the toolbar (or press Cmd+;) and click New thread at the bottom. Threads don't have to be anchored to anything, so this is the move for diagram-wide topics like "should we namespace these tables?"

Badges on the canvas

Any node with open threads (tables, groups, and sticky notes alike) gets a numbered badge at its top-right corner: the count of unresolved threads. Click the badge to jump in. One thread opens directly; more than one opens the panel, scoped to that node's threads. Resolve them all and the badge disappears.

If the canvas gets noisy, hide the badges with Cmd+Option+; or the eye button in the panel header. Same again to bring them back.

Replying and resolving

Open a thread to read the conversation and reply at the bottom. Messages support light markdown: bold, italic, inline code, code blocks, links, and lists. Hover a message to edit or delete your own (edited messages show "(edited)"). Editors can also delete a whole thread from the ⋯ menu in the thread header.

When it's settled, click Resolve. The panel sorts threads into Open, Resolved, and All tabs, each with a count. Resolving moves a thread out of the way, but nothing is lost: a reply to a resolved thread reopens it automatically, so late answers don't slip by.

Unread threads

Threads with replies you haven't seen are highlighted in the list, with a dot on the author's avatar, and the Discussions button in the toolbar shows an unread count of its own. Open a thread and it's marked as read, or click Mark all read to clear everything in one go.

Moving a thread

Anchored to the wrong table? Open the thread and click the caret on the anchor chip in its header. Reselect node lets you click a different node on the canvas, and Detach from node turns it into a diagram-wide thread. Clicking the chip itself pans the canvas to the node, handy when you've lost track of where anything is.

Deleting a node doesn't delete its threads. The badge goes away, but the thread survives with a grey Deleted table chip. Re-anchor it to something else, or undo the deletion and everything snaps back.

Who can do what

• Can view: read every thread.

• Can comment: start threads, reply, resolve and reopen, move a thread's anchor, and edit or delete your own messages.

• Can edit and admins: all of that, plus delete threads and anyone's messages.

Can comment is the one to hand people who should weigh in without editing the schema. Grant it from the Share modal, including to guests outside your team.

Threads are visible only to people the diagram is shared with. Anonymous visitors to a public diagram never see them.

Not sure when a thread beats a sticky note or a table comment? See Sticky notes, comments, or discussions?