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What's new?

Discover the latest features and capabilities of 5.2 that empower your development teams to build, design, and deploy with unprecedented efficiency and flexibility.

MCP support​

The Design Assistant can now work with systems outside the current project by calling tools those systems expose through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Any server that implements the MCP specification can be connected — not only a particular issue tracker or requirements tool.

The assistant is the MCP client. In chat, type @ and pick the system from the new External systems section of the mentions picker. That tells the assistant to load the server's tools and run them to complete your request. Typical uses include fetching tickets or wiki pages and using that information while you design.

By default the assistant executes only read-only tools. It does not write back to the connected system unless your administrator allows writing tools.

Read more in MCP support. For a complete walkthrough that combines MCP with proxy elements, see the Jira integration example.

External systems​

Administrators register each MCP server as an external system in Admin settings: name, endpoint, shared headers, timeout, and whether it is enabled. Users cannot add a new endpoint themselves.

Custom MCP settings — Each user can add personal headers and default arguments on top of an administrator-defined connection — typically their own Authorization token. The shared endpoint stays in Admin settings. OAuth and dynamic client registration are not supported; credentials are provided as headers only.

Read more in external systems and custom MCP settings.

External proxy elements​

When information you need for design is managed outside the workbench, represent it as an external proxy element in the model. You define the types and properties in your OML profile — as close to the source as you need, or more abstract.

External proxy elements persist in Git, can have relationships to other elements, and are available on the canvas and to the Design Assistant. Combined with MCP support, the assistant can fetch current information from a connected system and write the relevant fields onto a proxy.

The proxy is a representation in your model. It does not replace the object in the external system, and there is no live replica.

Read more in External proxy elements.

A new OML property type link stores a URL and an optional label. In details, the field is shown as a clickable link: the label is the text you see, and the URL is the destination. Use it on any element or relationship type.

Link properties are a good fit on external proxy elements for fields that point to the original source of the proxy. A link property is stored data, not a live connection, and is separate from URLs in the Loop tab.

Read more in link properties.

Reporting view and specification view​

View your model elements in two different views that you can switch between dynamically whenever needed.

The reporting view gives you an overview over all model elements for an easy comparison of elements and sorting according to your needs.

The specification view focuses on one model element in particular, giving you the space and tools to write your model element's documentation with ease.

Read more in model elements.

Improved canvas functionalities​

Add elements including their relationships — The Add elements menus on the canvas let you add several elements at once, including the relationships between them.

Details and spotlight from the add menu — You can view the details and spotlight of existing elements from the add menu.

Improved auto layout — Auto layouting now has more variants to choose from and works more efficiently.

Mini card visualization — A new visualization style "mini card" has been introduced.

Shape title position — The title position of shapes can be freely chosen.

Access other diagrams — You can directly access other diagrams in which a certain model element is used from the canvas.

Read more in modeling canvas.

Improved Design Assistant capabilities​

The Design Assistant can now edit existing relationships between model elements from a natural-language instruction, in addition to creating and deleting them.

Read more in How to use the Design Assistant.