Kanvas Documentation

Kanvas delivers a collaborative experience for engineers similar to how Google Workplace transforms the digital work environment and how Figma democratizes UX design tooling.

Understanding the Meshery Ecosystem

5-light-bg

Layer5 Cloud is an identity provider and global console for Meshery deployments with an extensible and highly flexible authorization framework, tenant entitlement services, service provider-grade organizational hierarchy, team workspace management and a content catalog for public and private hosting of cloud native architectures. Layer5 Cloud is available as a service or self-hosted.
Meshery is a cloud native manager that enables the design and management of Kubernetes-based infrastructure and applications. It is an extensible developer platform that seamlessly integrates with all CNCF projects, and various monitoring, CI/CD, and security tools.
kanvas logo
Kanvas delivers a collaborative experience similar to how Google Workplace transforms the digital work environment and how Figma democratizes UX design tooling. Kanvas simplifies the complexity of Kubernetes and multi-cloud infrastructure management accessible to all. Kanvas provides a visual, multi-player experience that allows you to create, configure, deploy, and manage modern infrastructure with confidence.

What is Kanvas?

Kanvas is like Google Docs for DevOps, as it allows you to create, test, and deploy cloud native architectures collaboratively and easily.

Kanvas is a web-based application that allows you to create and share orchestratable diagrams of cloud native infrastructure for Kubernetes and public cloud services. You can draw shapes, lines, text, and icons to represent your infrastructure components and their relationships. Kanvas also supports freestyle design, meaning that you can customize the appearance and layout of your diagrams without any constraints. Kanvas enables real-time collaboration, meaning that you can invite others to join your sessions and edit the diagrams together. Kanvas is a simple and intuitive tool for designing and communicating cloud native infrastructure for Kubernetes and multi-cloud services.

Choose your mode

Choose your mode of operation for Kanvas.

Designer

Designer mode is for those who want to create their own Kanvas, using the palette of components provided by Meshery.

Drag-and-drop your cloud native infrastructure using a palette of thousands of versioned Kubernetes components.

Use context-aware relationships configure your infrastructure intuitively.

Operator

Operator mode is for operating your Kubernetes clusters and cloud native infrastructure.

Bring all your Kubernetes clusters under a common management. Deploy designs, apply patterns, manage and operate your deployments and services in real-time.

Interactively connect to pods and containers to debug and troubleshoot.

Getting Started with Designs

What does your user need to know to try your project?

Exploring Designer

Designer mode is for those who want to create their own Kanvas, using the palette of components provided by Meshery.

Working with Components

Meshery Designs are descriptive, declarative characterizations of how your Kubernetes infrastructure should be configured.

Navigating Operator

Operator mode is for operating your Kubernetes clusters and cloud native infrastructure.

Core Tasks

Navigate your way around Kanvas with these common tasks.

Tutorials

Show your user how to work through some end to end examples.

Advanced

Advanced Kanvas topics like performance limits and tuning, troubleshooting and extending Kanvas.

Reference

APIs, Keyboard Shortcuts, Model Schemas

Last modified May 3, 2025: Refactor Kanvas and contributing documentation for improved clarity and styling (93ad1335)

Recent Discussions on Kanvas