figkit

Design figures with Python code. Boxes, arrows, LaTeX, images and data — laid out precisely, styled by a cascading theme, exported to SVG, PNG, PDF or HTML.

figkit is for the kind of figure you'd otherwise assemble by hand in Figma or draw.io: ML paper pipelines, architecture diagrams, research blog explainers. Except it's code, so it's diffable, reproducible, parameterisable — and an LLM can write it for you (see AI_MANUAL.md).

from figkit import *

with Figure(pad=24) as fig:
    a = Box("Encoder", style="block", w=120)
    b = Box("Decoder", style="blue").right_of(a, gap=60)
    arrow(a.e, b.w, label="$z$")

fig.save("figure.svg")
fig.save("figure.png", scale=2)

Check your work without looking at it. fig.audit() reports the mistakes that are obvious in a picture and invisible in the code — and stays quiet about deliberate overlap, so a clean report means something:

>>> print(fig.audit())
figkit audit: 2 issues (1 overlap, 1 contrast) in 34 elements
  overlap    Box('Decoder') covers Text('$z$') (240px², 61% of it)  at (196, 41)
  contrast   Box('Encoder'): text #dbeafe on #f3f4f6 has contrast 1.1:1 (want 3.0:1)  at (60, 17)

Install

pip install figkit              # core: layout, shapes, arrows, SVG/HTML export
pip install "figkit[latex]"     # + inline $math$ (matplotlib)
pip install "figkit[export]"    # + PNG/PDF export (cairosvg)
pip install "figkit[all]"       # everything

Only fonttools is required — it's what makes text measurement (and therefore layout) accurate. The extras degrade rather than break: without matplotlib an inline $formula$ is set as plain text with a warning, and without a rasteriser save("f.png") raises while SVG and HTML keep working. PNG/PDF export also accepts rsvg-convert, resvg, inkscape or headless Chromium if you'd rather not install cairo.

What it does

Accurate measurement. figkit reads the actual font file and measures glyph advances, so Box("Feature Extractor") is exactly as wide as its text plus its padding — and everything you place relative to it lands where you expect.

Live anchors. box.e is a reference, not a coordinate. Move the box and every arrow attached to it follows.

b = Box("model").right_of(a, gap=40)
link = arrow(a.e, b.w)
b.move(0, 120)          # the arrow follows

Explicit placement, not auto-layout. You say where things go; figkit does the arithmetic.

fm = Box("$F_M$").right_of(extractor, gap=24, align="top")
fn = Box("$F_N$").right_of(extractor, gap=24, align="bottom")
solver = Box("FMap Solver", style="blue").right_of(fm, gap=40)

elbow(fm.e, solver.w, stub=12)              # -| routing
mid = between(fm, fn)                        # vertically between two boxes
frame = fit(solver, cmn, pad=20, label="Fused operation", dash=True)

Cascading themes. Base tokens, per-role overrides, CSS-style classes and a colour palette — set once, applied everywhere.

T = PAPER.derive(
    font_size=13, radius=4,
    palette={"brand": "#3B6EA5"},
    box=Style(fill="#ffffff", stroke="#222222", padding=(9, 13)),
    styles={"solver": Style(fill="@brand", stroke="#1b1b1b")},
)
with Figure(theme=T) as fig:
    Box("FMap Solver", classes="solver")     # or style="solver block"

Classes resolve lazily against whichever theme is in scope, so the same class can mean different things inside a differently themed group.

LaTeX anywhere. Any $...$ span in any string is typeset and emitted as vector outlines, so exported files don't depend on installed fonts.

Box("$C_{\\mathcal{MN}} = \\phi^{\\dagger}_{\\mathcal{N}}\\Pi_{\\mathcal{NM}}\\phi_{\\mathcal{M}}$")

Data is just Python. A Frame maps data coordinates to figure coordinates; every mark it draws is an ordinary element you can anchor to.

fr = Frame(w=430, h=240, xlim=(0, 50), ylim=(0.35, 1.0))
fr.axes(xlabel="epoch", ylabel="accuracy", grid=True)
fr.line(xs, ys, stroke="@primary", lw=2)
arrow(note.se, fr.pt(50, 0.94))       # point at a data coordinate

Gallery

Each figure below is produced by the script of the same name in examples/. The first two are figkit reproductions of published figures, linked as reference — they are not affiliated with or endorsed by their authors.

01_pipeline.py — an ML paper pipeline

Themes, relative placement, live anchors, inline LaTeX, colour matrices, elbow routing and hand-built vector graphics. After the pipeline figure in URSSM.

02_attribution.py — a two-panel blog explainer

Programmatic node grids and hundreds of curved edges whose width and opacity come straight from the data. After the replacement-model and attribution-graph diagram in Anthropic's Circuit Tracing.

03_data_and_plots.py — data-driven graphics

A coordinate frame, a legend, a table, a brace and a heatmap with a colour bar.

05_rich_text_and_components.py — spans, components and formulas

Per-word colour and strike-through, a Component publishing named ports, and LabelledMatrix set as an equation with hstack(align="baseline").

04_themes.py — one diagram, seven themes

Not a single colour is set on an element — the theme cascade decides everything.

API tour

Anchors on every element: n s e w ne nw se sw center, plus at_angle(deg), uv(u, v) and offsets like box.e + (6, 0). Connectors add c.mid and c.anchor_at(t), which stay live as the arrow moves.

Design notes

• Coordinates are px, y grows downward — the SVG convention. n is the top.
• The output is clean SVG. No wrapper <g> soup, no embedded raster of your text: real <text> elements by default, real <path> outlines when you ask for text_as_paths=True (which PNG and PDF export do automatically).
• Groups own their children. Group(a, b) and fit(a, b) reparent, so the cluster moves as a unit. Use bbox_of([a, b]) when you only want the bounds.
• Text is centred optically, on the cap-height band, which is what looks right for short labels in boxes.
• No runtime layout engine. Placement happens when you call it. That makes the code easy to reason about and easy to debug — print a bbox and you know exactly where something is.

Development

pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest                       # 277 tests; every example must audit clean
python -m pyflakes figkit
python examples/01_pipeline.py

See CONTRIBUTING.md for what the test suite expects — in particular, that new audit checks come with tests for the cases they must not report.

License

MIT