Repository Bindings

A shape on the canvas is a placeholder until you bind it. Binding connects a C4 diagram node to a real entity in your Nodinite Repository — a System, a Service, or a Contract when UseContracts is enabled. Once bound, the node becomes live: it shows monitoring health, counts, and navigation links directly inside the diagram.

Nodes are not the only bindable items. A connector's flow can also be linked to a Message Type, so the architecture flow in the diagram points at the same canonical message definition used elsewhere in the Repository.

Animated walkthrough: on a Container diagram from the Order-to-Cash demo, the Order Intake node is bound with Resolve… to the Service INT1337-RCV-Order-Incoming, the OK monitoring state pill appears on the node, and the connector's flow is linked to the Message Type O2C.Order.Received/1.0. It ends on the bound node.

Bindings are what make C4 diagrams in Nodinite fundamentally different from static diagramming tools. Your architecture diagram reflects the actual state of your integration landscape in real time.

Diagram: Canvas items (blue) bind to Repository entities (teal); the bound node then gains live monitoring and navigation (green).

What Binding Does

Connector Flows and Message Types

Binding a Node to an Entity

1. Click the node's header to open Node Properties (see Editing Elements)
2. In Binding, click Resolve…
3. The Resolve — "‹node›" dialog opens, with the tabs Use existing Service (or Use existing System, depending on the node) and Create new. On a Container node, chips choose between Service and Contract
4. Type in the filter to find the entity by name, select the matching System, Service, or Contract, and click Confirm
5. The binding is saved automatically

After binding, Node Properties shows the bound entity with its description and the actions Open, Component Type, and Unbind. Its right column has Operational Status (Appears in N C4 diagrams), Related Diagrams, Articles, and Assistance.

To remove a binding, click Unbind. The node reverts to a placeholder that can be rebound to a different entity.

When UseContracts is enabled, you can replace an existing Service binding with a Contract binding directly from the same Resolve flow.

Info

If UseContracts is disabled, the resolver hides contract choices and behaves as System/Service-only.

Binding a Flow to a Message Type

Use this when a connector represents a named business message rather than just a generic transport relationship.

1. Click the connector in the Designer to open Connector Properties (see Drawing Connectors)
2. Under FLOWS, find the flow you want to manage
3. In its Message Type field, click Link a Message Type… and choose the matching Message Type
4. Leave the field empty if you want the flow to remain descriptive text only

The flow's Display Name remains editable even when it is linked. Use the visible label to keep the diagram readable and the Message Type binding to keep the relationship anchored to the Repository.

In Interactive View, linked flows show direct actions to open the linked Message Type. If the current user can modify Message Types, the connector popup also exposes the edit action.

After Binding — Service Nodes

When a node is bound to a Service, the node on the canvas shows the Component Type icon, the direction badge, the monitoring state pill, the transport-contract, BPM, and usage counts, and the ≡ menu. Node Properties shows the same data in its Operational Status section:

The monitoring state pill is clickable — clicking it navigates to the service's resource list in the Monitor view.

After Binding — Contract Nodes

When a node is bound to a Contract, the operational summary in Node Properties focuses on contract-specific context:

In contract-bound communication editing, the direction model follows contract semantics (outbound initiation). The UI avoids the full service-oriented direction list for this path.

After Binding — System Nodes

When a node is bound to a System:

Live Monitoring on the Canvas

Both the View page and the Designer poll the Nodinite monitoring API every 10 seconds. Monitoring state pills on all bound nodes update automatically in the background.

This means a colleague can promote a diagram to Active in the morning and by the afternoon it is already showing live health indicators for all bound services — no manual refresh needed.

Drill-through Links

A drill-through link connects a C4 node to another diagram. When a viewer clicks the link badge on a node, they navigate directly to the linked diagram. This is how cross-diagram navigation works — for example, clicking a System node in an L1 Context diagram to jump to the L2 Container diagram for that system.

Managing links

1. Open Node Properties
2. In the Related Diagrams section (right column), click Manage Links
3. The Link Manager panel opens on the right side of the screen
4. Add a link by searching for a diagram and selecting it
5. Set a label for the link (e.g. "Container details")
6. Remove links using the icon next to each entry

A link badge appears on the node in both View and Designer mode. The count of linked diagrams is shown in the Node Properties header.

Article Links

You can attach Nodinite Articles to any bound node. Articles appear in the Articles section of Node Properties.

Adding articles

1. Open Node Properties
2. Click Manage Articles in the right column
3. The Article Picker panel opens
4. Search for articles and select them
5. Each selected article is attached to the node

Article badges are visible on the canvas tile. Clicking the badge expands a list of attached articles with view and open-in-new-tab actions.

Opening an attached article from the node uses the full C4 article editor — the same article editor as the Articles list, with Templates, macros, Document Profiles, the composite workspace, and Dangling Content Part resolution all available. Macros such as {{node.name}}, {{node.type}}, and {{node.technology}} resolve against the bound node, and the Article Links list shows a preview of each attached article.

The Hamburger Menu

Each bound node shows a hamburger menu () in its action strip at the bottom of the tile. The menu appears on hover in both View and Designer mode.

The menu provides contextual navigation and editing shortcuts without leaving the diagram:

For Service nodes

For Contract nodes

For System nodes

Expandable submenus load their items from the Web API on demand — a loading spinner appears while items are fetched.

Custom Metadata on Nodes

Custom Metadata fields can be attached to bound nodes. The Custom Metadata button in Node Properties shows a count badge when metadata is assigned.

Click the button to open the Custom Metadata Attachment modal, where you can:

• View all metadata currently attached
• Attach new metadata values to the bound entity
• Remove existing metadata assignments

Custom metadata is also used by the Custom Metadata Filters bar in the Designer, which can visually highlight or dim nodes based on their metadata values.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Resolve button is not finding my Service

Type slowly — the search is a live free-text filter against entity names. Try a partial match (e.g. "Order" instead of "Order Processing Service"). If the entity is not shown, confirm it exists in the Repository under Services.

The Resolve dialog does not offer Contract

Contract binding choices are shown only when UseContracts is enabled. If you do not see contract options:

• Verify UseContracts is enabled in your environment
• Re-open the Resolve dialog after changing the setting
• Confirm the target contract exists in Contracts

The node shows a faded lightbulb-slash icon after binding

The Service exists in the Repository but has no monitoring resources configured. See the Monitoring documentation to configure monitoring for the service. The lightbulb indicator will change to a monitoring state pill once monitoring is set up.

Monitoring state is always Unavailable

The monitoring state is fetched from the live monitoring API. An Unavailable status means Nodinite could not reach the monitored resource. The pill uses the same mid-gray for Unavailable and Connection Error (the Monitoring Service can't reach the Monitoring Agent), so open the resource list to see which one it is. This reflects the actual state of the integration environment — it is not a diagrams problem.

Next Steps

• Diagram Lifecycle – Draft, Active, and Cloning
• Monitoring - Operational Health on Nodes

Related Topics

• Editing Elements – Node Properties
• Drawing Connectors
• Message Types
• Systems in the Repository
• Services in the Repository
• Contracts
• Articles
• Custom Metadata
• Mapify
• C4 Designer Overview
• Repository Properties for C4 Diagramming