Installation

ODDToolkit is a plain Java application. You build it from source and run the resulting JAR. There is no published binary and no package-manager install.

Prerequisites

Requirement	Notes
JDK 21	The build compiles with --release 21. A newer JDK works only if it still accepts release 21.
Maven	Optional. The repository ships the Maven wrapper (./mvnw, mvnw.cmd on Windows), so you do not need Maven installed.
Git	To clone the repository.

Check your JDK first:

java -version

Clone

git clone https://github.com/milieuinfo/oddtoolkit.git
cd oddtoolkit

Build

From the repository root:

./mvnw clean package

On Windows:

mvnw.cmd clean package

The build runs the unit tests. To skip them:

./mvnw clean package -DskipTests

What the build produces

Path	What it is
target/oddtoolkit.jar	The shaded, executable JAR. This is the one you run.
target/original-oddtoolkit.jar	The pre-shaded artifact. Not runnable on its own.
target/lib/	The runtime dependencies, copied out for the non-shaded JAR.

Verify

java -jar target/oddtoolkit.jar --help

You should see the usage text, including the list of registered generator names. If you get no main manifest attribute, you are running original-oddtoolkit.jar — use target/oddtoolkit.jar.

Next, run your first generator in Quick Start, or read the full option list in the CLI reference.

PNG export and Playwright

The diagram generators (class-diagram, er-diagram) write a Mermaid .mmd file and, by default, also render it to a .png next to it. Rendering uses Playwright, which drives a headless browser.

The browser is not part of the JAR — Playwright fetches it on first use, which needs network access and takes a while. If the Playwright runtime is unavailable, the toolkit logs a warning, skips the PNG and keeps the .mmd file; the run does not fail.

To skip PNG export entirely, add this to your configuration file:

generators:
  diagram-generator:
    export-png: false

See Generators for the rest of the diagram options.