I spend more time than I want to admit redrawing architecture diagrams every time a service moves. This quarter I tried to stop doing that by hand and let AI generate the visuals from plain text instead. Here are the field notes, what worked, what did not, and where each tool fits.
The problem with hand-drawn diagrams
A diagram in a README has a half-life of about two sprints. The moment you rename a queue or split a service, the picture lies. So you either keep redrawing it in some canvas tool, or you let it rot. Both options are bad.
Text-to-diagram tools change the economics. If the source of truth is text, regenerating the picture costs seconds, and the text lives next to your code where it belongs.
What I actually tested
