Build Your First Model from Scratch

Goal: Create a published model with at least three entity types and two relationships, then share a read-only link with a stakeholder.

Prerequisites

An Ontology Workbench account (free tier is fine)
No prior model required — this starts from zero

Steps

1. Create an account and reach the dashboard

Go to the signup page and create an account with your email. Click the verification link in the confirmation email, then sign in.

You land on the Dashboard — this is your workspace. All your models live here.

2. Create a blank model

Click New model in the top-right of the dashboard. Choose Blank model, give it a name (e.g. E-commerce), add an optional description, and click Create.

The workbench opens.

3. Add your first entity type

Click + Add entity type at the top of the left sidebar, or press N. A new entity type appears in the tree.

Click its name to rename it — use something concrete like Product.

With Product selected, the right panel shows its details. Set a description, then click + Add property to define fields:

Name	Type	Required
`name`	String	✓
`price`	Float	✗
`sku`	String	✓

4. Add a second entity type with an inherited subtype

Add another entity type named Category with a name (String, required) property.

Now add a third entity type named DigitalProduct. In its detail panel, set the Parent field to Product. This marks DigitalProduct as a subtype — it inherits all of Product's properties automatically.

Add a downloadUrl (String, required) property to DigitalProduct for the fields unique to it.

5. Create relationships and set cardinality

Select Product in the sidebar. In the Relationships section of its panel, click + Add from Product.

In the dialog:

Set Name to BELONGS_TO
Set Target to Category
Set Cardinality to N:1 (many products belong to one category)

Create a second relationship from Category to Product named HAS_PRODUCTS with cardinality 1:N.

6. Open the Validation drawer and resolve issues

Click the Validate button in the workbench toolbar (shield icon). The drawer shows any errors or warnings across your model.

Work through each issue — common ones at this stage are missing descriptions or relationships without cardinality set. Fix them in the relevant panel, then re-validate until the drawer shows 0 issues.

7. Visualize and export an image

Click the Visualize button in the toolbar (graph icon) to open the canvas view. Your entity types appear as nodes with edges for each relationship.

Use the zoom controls to fit the graph to screen. Click Export image in the canvas toolbar to download a PNG — useful for presentations or documentation.

8. Take a snapshot and publish

Back in the workbench, click Version History (clock icon) to open the snapshot drawer. Click + New snapshot, label it v1 initial, and save.

Now click Publish in the toolbar. This locks the current state as the public version and records it as a named snapshot automatically.

The toolbar badge changes from Draft to Published.

Click Share in the toolbar. A unique link is generated and copied to your clipboard.

Send it to a stakeholder — they can view the published canvas and all entity types without logging in.

What happens next

Export to a target stack — see the Multi-Stack Export workflow to generate Prisma, GraphQL, and Neo4j output from this model
Invite collaborators — see the Team Review workflow to bring in reviewers who can comment without editing

Models — templates, duplication, archiving
Entity Types — inheritance, abstract types, semantic annotations
Relationships — cardinality, relationship properties
Snapshots — point-in-time saves and restores
Sharing — share links and what recipients see