Archify Standard vs Showcase Quality Profiles: What's the Difference?

Archify's standard profile treats composition issues as warnings for engineering workflows, while the showcase profile promotes them to hard errors for polished public artifacts.

Archify ships two distinct quality profiles that control how strictly the tool validates diagram composition. The standard profile balances feedback with productivity, whereas showcase enforces a stricter visual standard suitable for gallery pieces and README screenshots. Understanding when to use each profile helps teams iterate faster without sacrificing quality for public-facing work.

How Quality Profiles Work in Archify

Quality profiles in Archify govern the severity classification of composition checks. Both profiles enforce identical safety validations—such as edges passing through nodes or non-finite paths—but diverge sharply on composition issues like crossings, overlaps, and border runs.

The profile is declared in your configuration via the quality_profile field, which the JSON schema restricts to ["standard", "showcase"] per archify/schemas/architecture.schema.json at line 21.

Standard Profile: Permissive by Design

The standard profile is the default mode for all Archify renders. It targets engineering workflows where diagram density and rapid iteration matter more than pixel-perfect composition.

• Safety errors fail the build and abort rendering
• Composition issues emit warnings without blocking output
• Exit code: always 0 unless safety violations exist
• Receipt: contains warning details for optional inspection

This profile lets developers work with complex, real-world diagrams without being interrupted by every visual imperfection.

Showcase Profile: Strict Visual Standards

The showcase profile is an opt-in strict mode activated via --quality showcase. It elevates three specific composition problems from warnings to fatal errors:

Severity Change	Issue Type
Warning → Error	Proper interior X crossings
Warning → Error	Unrelated collinear overlaps
Warning → Error	Routes running collinearly along container borders

• Exit code: non-zero if any composition error exists
• Artifact rejection: no output file generated on failure

Use this profile when generating screenshots for documentation, README files, or public galleries where visual polish is non-negotiable.

Profile Behavior Comparison

Aspect	Standard	Showcase
Default activation	Yes	Manual opt-in
Safety errors	Hard fail	Hard fail
Composition issues	Warning	Error
CLI exit code on composition problems	0	Non-zero
Suitable for	CI/CD, dense engineering diagrams	Gallery, README, public artifacts

The design intent behind this split is documented in docs/research-visual-evolution-round-44.md at lines 48-53, where the composition receipt research note summarizes the intended use cases for each profile.

Command-Line Usage Examples

Select your quality profile directly in Archify CLI commands:

# Default standard profile (explicit or implicit)

archify render architecture diagram.json out.html
archify render architecture diagram.json out.html --quality standard

# Showcase profile for polished output

archify render architecture diagram.json out.html --quality showcase

# Inspect which profile is active during validation

archify validate architecture diagram.json --json

# Output includes: "composition.profile": "standard"

When showcase fails, the receipt enumerates specific composition errors that must be resolved:

$ archify render architecture complex.json out.html --quality showcase
Error: composition validation failed
  - proper_crossing: Edge e12 crosses edge e34 at (145, 200)
  - border_run: Route r7 runs collinear with container border for 40px
Exit code: 3

Implementation and Testing

The behavioral difference between profiles is explicitly tested in archify/test/render-output-checks.test.mjs at lines 246-250. These unit tests verify that a proper crossing is recorded as a warning under standard but as an error under showcase, ensuring the severity mapping remains stable across releases.

The schema definition in archify/schemas/architecture.schema.json constrains the configuration surface, preventing invalid profile values from reaching the validation engine.

Summary

• Standard profile: Default, warning-centric mode for engineering workflows where productivity outweighs visual perfection
• Showcase profile: Strict, error-driven mode for public artifacts requiring polished composition
• Both profiles: Share identical safety validations; differ only in composition check severity
• Key files: architecture.schema.json (schema), render-output-checks.test.mjs (tests), research-visual-evolution-round-44.md (design rationale)

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I enable the showcase profile in Archify?

Pass --quality showcase to any archify render command. The CLI validates the value against ["standard", "showcase"] defined in archify/schemas/architecture.schema.json. Without this flag, all renders default to standard.

Will showcase profile reject diagrams that standard accepts?

Yes. Any diagram with proper crossings, unrelated collinear overlaps, or border runs will fail under showcase while passing under standard. The same underlying issues are detected in both cases; only the severity classification changes.

Can I override profile behavior for specific composition rules?

No. Archify treats the quality profile as a bundled severity preset. You cannot individually configure which composition checks fail versus warn. For granularity, run with standard and post-process the receipt, or fix issues until showcase passes.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "instagit": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "instagit@latest"]
    }
  }
}