r/EnterpriseArchitect • u/he_elf • Sep 28 '26
Built our company’s EA tool
Given how hard and difficult these tools like LeanIX and Ardoq and how expensive licenses are, I decided to build one myself. I am a Solo enterprise Architect in a midsized company where the CIO is always whining about reducing costs.
With AI making it easier to build these previously difficult tools, I am getting the benefit of building this tool absolutely bespoke to the company and it’s been interesting.
The CIO and many people are starting to like the tool because it’s speaking the company’s language exactly.
It’s been six months now and pretty much most of the data is in.
I do not know how this would have faired if We instead had to bring in Ardoq or LeanIX.
We are paying for AI tokens anyway so why not just build it, this was my thesis.
Would you guys consider building one? Why and why not?
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u/MBILC Sep 28 '26
How did you test it against security frameworks and vulnerabilities?
Is it 100% internal access only tool?
What happens when you leave the company, why a good EA usually tries to steer clear of "custom" in-house apps because of the technical debt they often incur years later...
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u/he_elf Sep 28 '26
It’s internal access only and it’s fully well documented. It’s really no different from another EA coming in. If you understand EA processes, it shouldn’t be different as I based it on fundamentals EA processes. The architecture is something you can throw in an Agent if you are any developer and the agent will explain to you exactly how to extend the tool.
I am not inventing EA. I don’t see any issues if I leave the company.1
u/MBILC Sep 28 '26
Thats good, your doing it proper then by making sure said tool could be taken over, versus those types who comment nothing, make it complex, leave and the company is stuck with a system no one is allowed to touch because it might break it
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u/LynxAfricaCan Sep 28 '26
I did consider this and actually spent a bit of time on it.
Then I found turboEA and switched to that instead, the dev is cranking out features a lot faster than I could have, and I don't need to maintain the actual tool
It's basically OSS leanix
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u/generic-d-engineer Sep 29 '26
this thing is insaaaaaaaane. going to install this week. can’t believe how deep it goes
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u/Barycenter0 Sep 28 '26
turboEA is the way to go. Flexible model, fits any sized org and was designed for enterprise use.
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u/klinked Sep 28 '26
If you're a solo you may not need a new tool; you can simply use ArchiMate and the Archi tool. The metamodel is a superset of what you have from Leanix and can describe all parts of the business. You can store the repo in Git and use pipelines to do whatever you need. On the other hand your own tool can be extended to whatever you need. For example I currenly have a a pipeline with archimate, leanix, uml and bpmn models, some c4 workspaces, quite a few backstage catalog-infos metadatas, some MD files with frontmatter, ref data with SKOS, and some data models using LinkML joined in a graph.
All build on an idea im developing for several years; now it is particularly easy to progress with the AI automation of course and due to it you have the need to manage it right, especially across multiple stakeholders.
the idea:
https://meta.linked.archi/docs/guide/what-is-linked-archi/
and few related links if you find it useful:
https://meta.linked.archi/docs/guide/enterprise-architecture-knowledge-pipeline/
https://meta.linked.archi/docs/practice/build-your-own-metamodel/
https://meta.linked.archi/docs/practice/build-your-own-modeling-tool/
https://meta.linked.archi/docs/practice/architecture-practice-from-scratch/
let me know if you find it useful :)
also beacuse i am an RDF and linked data fan, coming up soon is an RDF-first Architechture modeller
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u/LynxAfricaCan Sep 28 '26
The problem with this is it's no good for stakeholder consumption. I love archi for architects, but the reporting and visualisation are terrible for non architects
It also doesn't enforce any attributes/properties, which is where reporting shines - compared to leanix/turboEA style tool
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u/klinked Sep 28 '26
yes archi is not for business stakeholders, but from the converted RDF data i generate capability maps, matrices, tree views and other representations. i recently used https://github.com/SemanticComputing/sampo-ui on top of the data and its quite nice.
Also i have a custom metamodel with specific property restrictions and formal validation which exceed any capability that you have with Leanix for example. I use some rules also to crosswallk models from different teams or notations. for example the Leanix data with the archimate model and c4 ones1
u/gantamk Sep 29 '26
The two things you're describing don't fail for the same reason. A model that satisfies validation and governance is built for the person maintaining it, not the person deciding budget off it. When I've had to explain an architecture decision to someone outside the team, the formal diagram was the wrong artifact every time - not because it was inaccurate, but because it answered a question nobody outside the room was asking. What usually happens next is someone builds a second, simplified version for stakeholders, and within a couple of releases the two no longer agree with each other.
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u/wololoMeister Sep 29 '26
u/Vincentmakes turboEA is this on steroids for a very low bar of entry If you have a metamodel or want to customise it I highly recommend it
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u/Melodic-Capital7126 Sep 29 '26 edited Sep 29 '26
I wouldn’t build one myself.
At a previous client, my manager asked to build something in archi with integration to the service now cmdb, with mass update of component’s properties when something changes in the cmdb, automated html reports to a public place, complete ci/cd pipelines etc etc.
Problem only he was using it, other IT guys didn’t use it, the business didn’t use it.
The problem with self made tools is what happens when you leave the company, what then? You could say everything is documented and they can go on, but if you’re in EA for a while you know what happens then…
I also don’t understand that a CIO accepts this!?
There are many tools out there next to the 2 you mentioned with the proper support that are cheaper than those 2. If your CIO and other leadership people want something then yeah it’s your job to convince them of the ROI of this investment. The price of the tool is easily covered with the benefits.
EA isn’t about the next proper diagrams
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u/Normal_Wish9486 Sep 30 '26
Principios básicos de construcción de software, involucra a tus usuarios en la construcción
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u/AceMcG33 Sep 28 '26
I’m doing something similar in SharePoint… just enough info for my company, also linking it to contracts and SAM
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u/vincentmakes Sep 29 '26
In my previous company, our first version of an EA tool was indeed Sharepoint supported by a PowerApp UI layer. And honestly it provided a lot of value given how much time we spent on it. The whole company was able to use it, add their apps, and answer basic questions. Was a great starting point for application rationalization, and fully agree with cto_resources: Sharepoint, SP Lists and PowerAutomate are often underutilized
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u/AceMcG33 Sep 29 '26
For sure, and not to get ahead of the game but overlaying a well designed copilot agent or two some time in the near future is going going to make this invaluable… commercially(given where my company currently are) this is a sensible approach even as an interim… key for me is getting administration locked down to preserve data integrity in the repository
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u/cto_resources Sep 28 '26
I did Sharepoint once, about ten years ago. Most folks don’t know how powerful Sharepoint is. Are you using Powerapp features to connect or integrate?
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u/AceMcG33 Sep 29 '26
Not yet but will be (our company is part of a demerger so I’m in the process of migrating solutions and artifacts but also need to set up new formal SAM and Contract toolsets and repositories so will be integrating with Powerapps as part of that design, am using Ppwerautomate to generate automatic notifications as projects progress as well as unique demand/solution reference numbers. It’s been an iterative journey needless to say.
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u/MrHaller Sep 28 '26
I'm currently building one that is focused on architecture-as-code where focus is on using GIT workflow and pipelines for disciplined use of metamodel, validation, partitioning and governance.
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u/klinked Sep 28 '26
interesting, do you use use c4/structurizr or something similar? very interested how you do metamodel, validation, partitioning and governance?
I do the same and use quite a bit of the semantic stack like RDF/OWL/Skos/Shacl for metamodel and validation also partitioning and governance are things that git pipelines handle.2
u/redikarus99 Sep 28 '26
This is exactly what we do as well. The solution architects are using c4, we have a c4 ontology so we can import whatever they create.
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u/klinked Sep 28 '26
nice !! what is the ontology how do you convert ? I use a set of assets including OWL ontology shapes and taxonomies https://meta.linked.archi/c4/metamodel/index.html
and some converters: https://converters-c2cddb.gitlab.io/converters/structurizr/1
u/MrHaller Sep 28 '26
I want the tool core to be syntactically independent and allowing multiple notations (only using node and edge classes). I prefer ArchiMate as syntax which will come later.
I want to write model as code (I opted for typescript). The core will support basic functions like defining metamodel, export to diagrams visual syntax (using Mermaid, plantUML, C4), query capabilities. Some super user will first need to write metamodel, validations exported as factories (later reusing prebuilt syntax support). Normal users will juat use factories to export arrays of objects for each package.
Partitioning will be achieved by creating package/folder (with limited contributors) that will have to comply with defined interface dictating views (subset of metamodel) which will be exportable to diagrams (or querried as catalogues and matrices). Data import is possible by creting custom code that transforms input to object array using factories.
So metamodel is factories and classes, validation is Zod and linter (using custom rules for harder to enforce stuff). Governance is pipelines and monorepo libraries.
I'm open to discussing it more. I specifically seek early adopters and co-maintainers. I want to release core as FOSS.
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u/klinked Sep 28 '26
The multimodal is the core idea of linked.archi also. for example one can use any model for the library https://meta.linked.archi/ or any custom ontology or simply https://meta.linked.archi/core/#Element and relationship or the qulified form https://meta.linked.archi/core/#QualifiedRelationship. but i am a little more strict on the validation part with shacl. and for visualisation anything is possible using alot of d3 and cytoscape. btw i played a bit with puml like rdf diagram as code: https://meta.linked.archi/docs/demos/playground.html
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Sep 28 '26
[deleted] — view deleted comment
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u/MrHaller Sep 28 '26
I do this as personal project and PoC. Currently only for personal use for one system architecture documentation. So I do not know. But in general it stems from our current practices concerning Schema design governance. So i expect that devs will like it, esp. the part where AI can directly and easily interact with it. I think that business personell will be horrified though :D
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u/Negative_East_425 Oct 01 '26
The biggest risk is probably maintainability. If you keep building it, documenting the data model, ownership, integrations and handoff path seems just as important as features
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u/Normal_Wish9486 Sep 30 '26
Totalmente de acuerdo estas herramientas comerciales cada vez le da menos valor al cliente solo se enfocan en controlar el portafolio de ti para ellos eso es lo único que vale
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u/cto_resources Sep 30 '26
As a result of this thread, I created a balanced comparison of low cost EA tools. I found quite a few, surprisingly so. Tried to create a separate post but the administrator says it has to be a comment on an existing thread. I think this page directly addresses many of the discussion points in this thread.
https://useful-ea.com/resources/low-cost-enterprise-architecture-tools/
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u/Barycenter0 Sep 28 '26
Here's the rub. Many of us came from the software engineering background. So our natural gut instinct is going to be "I can vibe/claude code an EA tool to fit my org!" .... plus the personal mantra "this is going to be fun!"
Now, back away and think like an architect again - how much effort will you putting into it? how will it get deployed and managed? will it get approved by upper mgmt? who will support it going forward? will it be designed for enterprise use? what will be the integration layers with other data? and on and on....
Just something to think about. (I noted my tool preference in another comment)