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Installation & Setup

Scapius provides a containerized toolchain and official IDE extensions for authoring and validating .ea architecture files.

The official Scapius Community Edition Docker image packages the compiler and validator with zero host dependencies for self-hosted evaluation.

Pull the Docker Image​

docker pull ghcr.io/scapius-ea/scapius-community:latest

OR

use the docker-compose file

services:
  scapius:
    image: ghcr.io/scapius-ea/scapius-community:latest
    container_name: scapius-app
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:8080:8080"
    volumes:
      # Mount local workspace directory to container /workspace
      - ./workspace:/workspace
    restart: unless-stopped

Validate Architecture Files​

Run the container by mounting your current directory:

# Validate an entire directory of .ea files
docker run --rm -v ./workspace:/workspace ghcr.io/scapius-ea/scapius-community validate /workspace

Shell Alias (Optional)​

For convenience, add an alias to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc:

alias scapius='docker run --rm -v ./workspace:/workspace ghcr.io/scapius-ea/scapius-community'

Then you can simply run:

scapius validate /workspace

2. Install the VS Code Extension​

The official Scapius VS Code extension provides real-time authoring intelligence:

  • Syntax highlighting for all .ea keywords, entities, and relationship verbs
  • Real-time diagnostic validation (duplicate IDs, invalid relationships, date ordering)
  • Intelligent auto-completions and snippet expansion
  • Hover documentation detailing ArchiMate alignment and property constraints

Install from Marketplace​

  1. Open Visual Studio Code.
  2. Press Ctrl+P (or Cmd+P on macOS) and run: 
    ext install scapius-ea.scapius-vscode
  3. Or search for Scapius in the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X / Cmd+Shift+X).

Organize your architecture repository with standard directories containing .ea files:

my-architecture/
├── main.ea
├── 01-business/
│   ├── capabilities.ea
│   ├── processes.ea
│   └── value_streams.ea
├── 02-application/
│   ├── systems.ea
│   └── integrations.ea
├── 03-technology/
│   └── environments.ea
└── 04-security/
    ├── policies.ea
    └── threat_models.ea
Supported File Types

Scapius models are defined strictly in .ea files. Multi-file workspaces are discovered by scanning directories of .ea files. Workspace node must be defined in the root folder.

Next Steps​