Job ticket 783407 · smb · sketch grid · no subscription
The fourth diagram is the paywall. The map was always in the words.
Lucidchart's Free plan stops at 3 documents and 75 shapes per document — Individual then runs US$9 a month on an annual commitment, Team US$10 per user. This job ticket hands the mapping to prompts you own: paste your process as plain paragraphs and the grid lays it into numbered cells with decisions and named branches; run the friction check and loops without exits, orphan steps and dead ends pin themselves to the exact cell numbers. The collaborative canvas stays Lucidchart's — the thinking diagrams do moves to paper you own.
Lucidchart is a trademark of its owner. This is an independent, unaffiliated comparison built on Lucidchart's own published pricing material, linked below and re-read every thirty days.
Paste the prose, press map the grid, and the cells number themselves — START to every END, diamonds carrying both branches, handoffs drawn at the owner boundary, each cell citing the sentence that made it. — rendered in this browser
Sample data is illustrative, not a claim about Lucidchart. Every Lucidchart figure on this page comes from the linked pricing page, read 2026-09-27.
The prompt pack
Two prompts, each mapped one-to-one onto a Lucidchart feature you are currently rationed on. Run them from this page with a free key, or copy them into any free chat model — the text is identical either way, and it is printed in full at the bottom of this section so it survives this site.
Loading the pack from tools.json… If this fails, the full prompt text is still readable below.
One-time unlocks only, never a subscription. If a price ever appears here it was read from Stripe in that request, not typed by hand. An unlock is client-side gating, not secure payment verification: it is stored in this browser and cannot prove payment to anyone else.
What Lucidchart's own pricing page says
Read from lucidchart.com/pages/pricing on 2026-09-27. Fields we could not read are marked unconfirmed rather than filled in with a plausible number.
| The job | Lucidchart Free | This page | This page + a free-tier model |
|---|---|---|---|
| Documents / shapes | 3 / 75 per document | Unlimited pastes — cell 76 costs nothing | undefined |
| Mapping a process | Manual drag-and-drop | Prose → numbered grid in one pass, US$0 | undefined |
| Process discipline | The diagram silently permits mess | Friction audit with cited fixes | undefined |
| Shared canvas · integrations | The paid collaboration | Not displaced — stays Lucidchart's | undefined |
What this replaces, and what it does not
A displacement claim you cannot substantiate is a lie with good typography. This is the whole scope, including the parts where Lucidchart wins.
A mapped process
Numbered cells, named branches, source lines cited per cell
A friction audit
Loops, orphans, dead ends and wait-points with one-rewire fixes
An exportable map
Mermaid and Markdown downloads any wiki renders
No visual canvas
The grid is text-true; drag-and-drop styling belongs to drawing tools
No real-time collaboration
One reader, one prose, one map per paste
No stored documents
Maps live in your files; the desk keeps nothing
The prompts, in full, as text
Copy these into any model. They are the product; the page around them is convenience. Each block is the exact system prompt the interactive runner sends, plus the user-message template.
Prompt 01 — 1. Map the process grid · lucidchart-process-mapper v1.0.0 · best ally: Google Gemini API — Free usage tier · gemini-2.5-flash
Replaces: The diagram itself: your pasted process description laid into numbered cells — steps as boxes, decisions as diamonds with named branches, every handoff an arrow with its owner.
Why this model: Process mapping from prose is entity-and-flow extraction with a validity contract (every arrow lands somewhere, every decision has branches); a free Flash at low temperature draws clean maps and reflows nothing silently. Fallback ally: OpenRouter — :free model variants.
System prompt (1330 chars):
You keep the sketch grid: the reader pastes a process description in prose. You lay it out — numbered step cells in order, decision diamonds wherever the prose names a condition, branches named after the outcomes, handoffs drawn between named owners. Every cell cites the prose line that created it.
Return ONLY one JSON object. No markdown fences, no commentary, no preamble.
{
"kicker": string (max 8 words),
"title": string (max 8 words),
"subhead": string (max 20 words),
"items": [
{ "title": string (the cell's name (verb-first for steps); body: the cell number, what happens in <= 12 words, and the arrow(s) out with their targets (e.g. → 5, or YES → 7 / NO → 3)), "tag": string (one of STEP | DECISION | HANDOFF | START | END), "body": string }
],
"notes": [ string (one short footnote per run-wide decision) ]
}
Hard rules:
1. Every arrow names its target cell; no cell dangles without an exit unless it is END.
2. DECISION cells always carry both branches, named after the pasted condition.
3. HANDOFF cells name both owners as pasted (warehouse → courier), drawn at the boundary.
4. Cell text quotes or tightly compresses the prose; one source line cited per cell.
5. Steps implied but unstated render as STEP with [assumed] and the reason.
6. Numbering runs from ONE START to every END, depth-first.
User message template:
Variables:
{{process}}— Process description (paste) (max 3000 chars) sample data shipped with the tool{{owners}}— Owners/roles (max 160 chars) sample data shipped with the tool
Output schema (the answer must match this exactly):
Decoding: temperature 0.3 · max 2200 output tokens · responseMimeType application/json · budget ~900 in / ~1,300 out · cost per run: 1 request against Gemini's free daily messages; the relay floor needs no key at all.
Prompt 02 — 2. Check the grid for friction · lucidchart-friction-checker v1.0.0 · best ally: OpenRouter — :free model variants · qwen/qwen3-32b
Replaces: The second look paid diagrams invite but can't enforce: your mapped (or pasted) process audited for loops without exits, steps nobody owns, and dead ends where work goes to die.
Why this model: Friction audit is path reasoning over a small graph with plain-language findings; a free 32B at low temperature walks every branch and finds the cell where the process quietly stops working. Fallback ally: Google Gemini API — Free usage tier.
System prompt (1361 chars):
You audit the sketch grid: given the mapped cells (or a prose process), you walk every path and file friction slips — loops with no exit condition, cells no role owns, dead ends where the process stops without an END, and wait-points with no stated time. Each slip cites the cell numbers it condemns.
Return ONLY one JSON object. No markdown fences, no commentary, no preamble.
{
"kicker": string (max 8 words),
"title": string (max 8 words),
"subhead": string (max 20 words),
"items": [
{ "title": string (the finding's name; body: the cells involved by number, the fault in <= 12 words, then the smallest fix — which cell earns the missing arrow or owner), "tag": string (one of LOOP | ORPHAN | DEAD-END | WAIT | SOUND), "body": string }
],
"notes": [ string (one short footnote per run-wide decision) ]
}
Hard rules:
1. LOOP requires at least two cells cycling back; name the exit condition the loop is missing.
2. ORPHAN cells are steps no pasted owner can perform; the fix assigns one from the pasted roles or flags the gap.
3. DEAD-END cites the final cell and what the work item was waiting for.
4. WAIT cites steps with handoffs but no timeout; the fix is the stated deadline owner.
5. A friction-free grid returns SOUND with the longest path walked, cell by cell.
6. Fixes rewire at most two arrows — no redesigns disguised as slugs.
User message template:
Variables:
{{map}}— Your process map or prose (paste) (max 3000 chars) sample data shipped with the tool{{done}}— Definition of done (max 120 chars) sample data shipped with the tool
Output schema (the answer must match this exactly):
Decoding: temperature 0.2 · max 1600 output tokens · responseMimeType application/json · budget ~900 in / ~800 out · cost per run: 1 request against the free OpenRouter daily pool; the relay floor needs no key at all.
Questions worth asking before you cancel
Is a text grid really a diagram?
It is the substrate diagrams are made of — cells, arrows, named branches — and it exports as Mermaid, which renders into a drawn diagram anywhere wikis or docs tools support it. You lose drag-styling; you gain version-control, diffing and zero logins.
Where does the 75-shape pain actually bite?
On real processes: an honest 10-step flow with two decision diamonds and handoffs burns 20+ shapes fast, and three documents covers one sprint. The grid has no such ceiling — cell 76 is a line of text.
How does the friction checker find dead ends?
By walking every path from START: any path that stops outside END, any loop without an exit condition, any wait-point without an owner — each cited by cell number with the single rewiring that fixes it. Sound grids must show the longest walk to earn the stamp.
Where does my process description go?
Into one request to your free ally and nowhere else — no document storage, no board, no collaborators to manage. Downloads are yours; the desk forgets the process when the tab closes.
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