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+# mermaid.live — render & validate arbitrary Mermaid
+
+Use this when you need to **render a Mermaid diagram and confirm it actually parses**
+(e.g., after editing a `.md`/`.html` that embeds Mermaid) without a local mermaid CLI.
+mermaid.live renders client-side, so it doubles as a free validator.
+
+## URL format (the non-obvious part)
+
+The editor state lives entirely in the URL hash, **not** a query param:
+
+```
+https://mermaid.live/edit#pako:<data>
+```
+
+`<data>` is the editor state JSON, **raw-deflated (zlib) then URL-safe base64**. It is
+NOT plain base64 of the code — skipping the deflate step gives a blank editor. Build it
+in Python (the harness already runs Python):
+
+```python
+import json, zlib, base64
+
+def mermaid_live_url(code: str) -> str:
+    state = {"code": code, "mermaid": '{\n  "theme": "default"\n}',
+             "autoSync": True, "updateDiagram": True}
+    raw = json.dumps(state).encode("utf-8")
+    data = base64.urlsafe_b64encode(zlib.compress(raw, 9)).decode("ascii").rstrip("=")
+    return "https://mermaid.live/edit#pako:" + data
+```
+
+`zlib.compress` emits the zlib-wrapped stream `pako.inflate` expects (header + adler32) —
+this matches mermaid.live's `pako.deflate`. Stripping the `=` padding is fine; the
+decoder is tolerant.
+
+## Confirming the render (headless-safe, no screenshot needed)
+
+`screenshot()` returns image bytes the agent can look at, but if you're driving the
+harness from a shell you only get stdout — so verify via the DOM instead. On a **good**
+render mermaid.live injects an `<svg id="graph-...">` with many `<g>` groups; on a
+**syntax error** it shows an error string and no real graph.
+
+```python
+new_tab(mermaid_live_url(code)); wait_for_load()
+import time; time.sleep(2)   # mermaid renders client-side after load
+print(js("""(() => {
+  const svgs=[...document.querySelectorAll('svg')]
+    .map(s=>({id:s.id,nodes:s.querySelectorAll('g').length})).filter(s=>s.nodes>5);
+  return JSON.stringify({rendered:svgs,
+    syntaxErr:/syntax error|parse error/i.test(document.body.innerText||'')});
+})()"""))
+# rendered:[{id:"graph-247",nodes:136}] + syntaxErr:false  => parses & renders
+# rendered:[] (or only tiny svgs) + syntaxErr:true         => broken Mermaid
+```
+
+A diagram of any real size yields dozens+ of `<g>` nodes; `>5` filters out the page's
+own UI icons (toolbar SVGs report `width="1.2em"` and ~0 `<g>`).
+
+## Traps
+
+- **`#pako:` is a hash, not a query.** `wait_for_load()` won't catch the client-side
+  render — add a short `time.sleep`.
+- **Don't trust "no error text" alone** — also require a real `<svg>` with many nodes.
+  A blank editor (bad encoding) shows neither an error nor a graph.
+- Theme/look-and-feel never affects parse success; keep the `mermaid` state minimal.