Ortho for SysML v2

See the architecture while you write the model. Ortho draws six architectural views of a SysML v2 model, in SysML v2's own graphical notation: use case, logical, implementation, physical, deployment and process. It shows them beside the text and draws them again every time you save.

It is made for models that AI agents write and people review. ortho's checks land in the Problems panel, and an agent working in VS Code's terminal checks its work with the same ortho as the preview.

Getting started

1. Run Ortho: Open Example from the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P, or Cmd+Shift+P on a Mac) and pick the coffee machine. It is copied into a folder you choose and opens with the preview beside it.
2. Change the model and save. The diagrams follow.
3. For a model of your own, open a .sysml file and click the preview button at the top right of the editor, or press Ctrl+K V (Cmd+K V on a Mac).

There is nothing else to install: the extension carries ortho, built for your system.

Features

• The diagrams beside the model. The preview has a tab for each view the model declares. Click a box to open the line that declares it. Click anywhere else in a diagram to switch between fitting the panel and actual size.
• Save the diagrams as SVG, for a document, a slide or your repository. Save SVG… at the top of the preview saves the view shown, and Save all… every view into a folder you pick. The files are exactly what ortho render writes, with the same names, so saving again replaces them.
• Problems where you write. A name that does not resolve, a syntax error, or two views that disagree, such as a function nothing performs, is underlined in the file and listed in the Problems panel. While the model does not load, the last diagrams stay in the preview, faded.
• SysML v2 colouring: keywords, the names that definitions and packages declare, comments, strings, quoted names, numbers and metadata such as #Safety. The keywords are exactly the ones ortho reads. Ctrl+/ comments a line.
• AI instructions. Ortho: Add AI Instructions writes a skill for Claude Code and instructions for GitHub Copilot into your workspace. They carry the SysML v2 that ortho reads, and tell the agent to render the model after every change and fix what ortho reports, rather than delete the line it points at.
• Two examples, a coffee machine and a survey drone, each with all six views, copied into a folder you pick by Ortho: Open Example.

Your model

A model is every .sysml file in the folder of the file you preview, read together. Each view is declared in the model with SysML v2's standard view definitions, and every view is optional: a model draws only the views it declares. LANGUAGE.md says what to write for each view, and VIEWS.md what each view shows.

Commands

Settings

The extension puts the ortho it runs first on the PATH of VS Code's terminals, so ortho render there is the same ortho as the preview's. In a folder you have not told VS Code to trust, the folder's own ortho.path is ignored, so a repository you cloned cannot choose a program for the extension to run.

Your data stays on your machine

The extension collects no telemetry and makes no network calls, and neither does ortho. The preview's diagrams are kept in VS Code's storage for the extension, never in your workspace, until you save them.

Beside other extensions

It reads SysML v2 only, not SysML v1. It uses the language id sysml, so it works beside other SysML v2 extensions, such as SysIDE, which give completion and other help with typing a model.

More

ortho is also a command-line program, for rendering the diagrams in CI so they never drift from the model: see ortho on GitHub, where issues are welcome.