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Second this.
Reference for anyone looking I to it: https://c4model.com/
There is also quite a lot of options for helping create these diagrams. I've found https://structurizr.com/ to be the best of what I've tried so far.
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SaaSHub
SaaSHub - Software Alternatives and Reviews. SaaSHub helps you find the best software and product alternatives
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text-to-diagram-site
Compare syntax, layouts, outputs between languages for generating diagrams with text.
As far as guidelines, I have spent time looking as well an never came away with a good answer. One useful website for comparing some of the best tools is https://text-to-diagram.com/. My personal favorite is D2. Still lacking a few layout features that I want, but it gets me 90% of the way there. The syntax is great for projects big to small, and it strikes the perfect balance between "create a diagram fast" and "feature rich". But in terms of actual guidelines, I would agree with another user that C4 actually tries to lay out some sort of guidelines.
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C4-PlantUML
C4-PlantUML combines the benefits of PlantUML and the C4 model for providing a simple way of describing and communicate software architectures
Third this. Don't look any further, just do it!
Also, PlantUML + C4 is like peanut butter & jelly:
https://github.com/plantuml-stdlib/C4-PlantUML
I'll gladly give up control of layout, and accept some ugliness, to never again have to worry about dragging boxes and arrows to be pixel-aligned, and then do it all over again when I add another box...
It looks like Mermaid has C4 support too:
https://mermaid.js.org/syntax/c4.html
