Version 8, released February 2022, UA version August 2022, CZ version October 2022, FR version June 2023, PT version October 2024.

Nous sommes heureux d’annoncer la disponibilité de la version française d’arc42 - merci beaucoup à Damien Lucas. Bon travail!

We are so happy to announce the availability of the Czech version of arc42 - thanx to Jakub RC. You rock!

We are incredibly happy to announce the availability of the Ukrainian version of arc42 - thanx to Ivan Bulyk and support from Larysa Visengeriyeva.

Thanx to Guilherme Weizenmann for the Portugese translation, and the constructive review by Pedro Mattiollo. Você é incrível!

On this page you find all available arc42 template downloads, various formats for various tools. For an overview of these formats, see below.

File-based formatsPermalink

These formats are generated based upon their AsciiDoc sources from the GitHub repository.

Confluence formatPermalink

Confluence versions are generated with help and come in two flavors:

• flat: all sections on a single page
• structured: one Confluence page per arc42-section

Unfortunately, we cannot generate for the latest versions confluence. It is based upon an older version of the template - due to technical difficulties in generating confluence from asciidoc.

Notes for Confluence users

• We stopped operating a public confluence instance.

• If you consider to use confluence, the asciidoc2confluence script might be helpful.

• There was a confluence plugin available from the atlassian marketplace, but currently it seems Atlassian has discontinued support. We are afraid you’re on your own…

Legacy Version (arc42 v6) for ConfluencePermalink

If you still use confluence version 4 or 5, these legacy downloads might help you

These legacy versions have been provided (thanx!) by arc42 users - and can not be supported by us (as we don’t have access to these legacy Confluence versions).

Doxygen formatPermalink

Doxygen is the de facto standard tool for generating documentation from annotated C++ sources, but it also supports other popular programming languages such as C, Objective-C, C#, PHP, Java, Python, IDL (Corba, Microsoft, and UNO/OpenOffice flavors), Fortran, and to some extent D. Doxygen also supports the hardware description language VHDL.

doxygen.nl

This template is available in EN only. Contributed by Stephan Lessing, February 2023.

Enterprise Architect© formatPermalink

Enterprise Architect;copy; is a commercial UML modeling tool by SparxSystems. Updated versions contributed by Raphael Dumhart, May 2024.

This template includes the complete arc42 structure, based on version 8.2 from January 2023. It uses only functions from the Professional Edition to support all editions of Enterprise Architect. The template implementation uses UML diagrams and text documents, where diagrams are not suitable. Some parts, like the glossary and risks use extended UML.

Note on Enterprise Architect VersionsPermalink

The template is provided in a QEA and EAPX file format. QEA was introduced in EA 16 and is based on SQlite3. EAPX is the older default file format, which uses JET 4 as the repository database. This format should be supported with EA 15 and below.

If you are using a version earlier than EA 14, you want to rename the EAPX extension to EAP. Pre EA 14 you could use JET 3.5 or JET 4 in EAP files. In version 14, this was made explicit by introducing EPAX for JET 4 and using EAP for JET 3.5.

If you only want to view a model, have a look at EA Lite edition, which is offered free of charge and can be downloaded here

How to usePermalink

1. Download the QAE or EAPX file in the language of your choice (DE or EN).
2. Copy the template to your target location and rename it.
3. Optional (see “Note on Enterprise Architect Version): Rename the file extension from EAPX to EAP.
4. Open the file.
5. Edit all the files according to your needs. You will find the official arc42 explanation provided as notes directly in the corresponding diagrams. Where needed, I added some additional help.
6. You can delete the “Info” package if you want. It only contains meta information to the arc42 template.

IBM Rhapsody© formatPermalink

Rhapsody© is a commercial modeling tool by IBM, primarily suited for embedded systems.

The Rhapsody version of arc42 contains the complete parts of the arc42 structure with minimum help text. It’s available in EN only. This rhapsody arc42 profile includes the complete arc42 structure within Rhapsody using UML/SysML.

This version has been created and tested with Rhapsody version 8.2.1.

It contains following items in the zip archive:

1. rhapsody_arc42_profile Rhapsody project. In this Rhapsody project following model is contained:
   • rhapsody_arc42_profile which comprises of stereotypes required for establishing arc42 structure
   • place holder to start adding your project

2. rhapsody_arc42_report_generation folder for Report generation which contains IBM RPE template required to generate Report out of the Rhapsody model.

3. rhapsody_example_arc42_for_arc42 example Rhapsody project called. In this Rhapsody project following model is incorporated
   • example_arc42_for_arc42 a small example where all the chapters are explained on why arc42 with arc42 structure
   • usage of rhapsody_arc42_profile within
4. rhapsody_arc42_getting_started_guide.docx which explains the usage of rhapsody arc42 profile

We appreciate the contribution of user @nrnjnsk83 (Niranjan SK, Robert Bosch GmbH), who produced and contributed the Rhapsody version for arc42!

Formats for other modeling toolsPermalink

We currently don’t support additional modeling tools - but would love to… In case you use arc42 with such a tool, please think about contributing :-)

Please contact us!

Format overviewPermalink

docx

Microsoft Word, usable with LibreOffice or OpenOffice

asciidoc

Powerful yet simple markup language, used by arc42 itself. Ideally suited for architecture documentation. See docToolchain or the original source.

markdown

Widespread and simple markup language, documented here by its inventor.

markdown (strict)

A restricted markup, documented here by its inventor.

markdownMP

Same format as markdown above but every chapter is located in its own file.

gitHubMarkdown

GitHub Flavored Markdown is a dialect of Markdown that is used on GitHub.com and GitHub Enterprise. See the article here .

gitHubMarkdownMP

Same format as gitHubMarkdown above but every chapter is located in its own file.

latex

No, not the rubber stuff, but the mother (despite TeX) of all markup languages, a full-blown document preparation system. For those who need beauty and are willing to invest some effort…

rst

ReStructuredText, markup language, heavily used by ReadTheDocs and in the Python world.

textile

Another simple markup language, documented on textile-lang.com. 

html

Used only to view the template, not to work with it.

Confluence

A commercial wiki system (by Atlassian Inc.).

Learn more!Permalink

Training site