Edges & Relationships

Edges are the arrows between nodes. They represent relationships — who calls what, what depends on what, where data flows.

Creating edges

Hover over any node to see connection handles appear on each side. Click and drag from a handle to another node to create an edge.

The arrow points from the initiator to the dependency:

• Web App → API Server (the app calls the API)
• API Server → Database (the API reads from the database)
• User → Web App (the user interacts with the app)

Edge properties

Select an edge to see its properties in the right panel:

• Label — describes the relationship, e.g. “Makes API calls”, “Reads/writes data”, “Sends emails via”
• Method — the protocol or mechanism, e.g. “REST/HTTPS”, “SQL”, “gRPC”, “WebSocket”

One edge per relationship

A single edge captures the full interaction between two nodes. Don’t split a “send request” and “receive response” into two separate edges — one edge covers the round trip.

Two edges between the same pair of nodes are only valid when they represent genuinely independent relationships with different purposes.

Edges at every level

Because scryer shows one abstraction level at a time, you should have edges at each level:

• System level — Person → System, System → System
• Container level — Person → Container, Container → Container, Container → External System
• Component level — Component → Component, Component → External System

When you add components to a container, also add edges that reflect the container-level relationships at the component level.

Note

Component-level edges should go from a component to the target container — not to a component inside another container. The container is the public interface; its components are implementation details.

Deleting edges

Select an edge and press Delete, or right-click it and choose delete.

For reference nodes (dimmed nodes from outside the current scope), pressing delete removes the edge connection, not the referenced node.