Plot

Quick Start

Create your first novem plot — a bar chart of letter frequencies — from an empty terminal to a shareable URL.

AI assisted, human approved — novem uses AI to review and keep our documentation up to date.

This guide takes you from nothing to a live, shareable bar chart. By the end you'll have built this:

  • A novem account — see the introduction if you don't have one yet.
  • For the CLI steps: the novem CLI installed and authenticated (pipx install novem && novem --init, details in the CLI guide).
  • For the API steps: an API token (novem --init creates one, or use an existing Bearer token).

A plot is created by claiming a name. Names are yours — they only need to be unique among your own plots.

novem -p letter_freq -C

Novem plots eat plain CSV — the first column is the category, the second the value. Save this as letters.csv (frequency of letters in English text):

letters.csv
A | 8.167
B | 1.492
C | 2.782
D | 4.253
E | 12.702
F | 2.228
G | 2.015
H | 6.094
I | 6.966
J | 0.153
K | 0.772
L | 4.025
M | 2.406
N | 6.749
O | 7.507
P | 1.929
Q | 0.095
R | 5.987
S | 6.327
T | 9.056
U | 2.758
V | 0.978
W | 2.361
X | 0.15
Y | 1.974
Z | 0.074

Then write it to the plot's data endpoint:

novem -p letter_freq -w data @letters.csv

# or pipe it straight from another tool
cat letters.csv | novem -p letter_freq -w data

Everything in novem is a file behind a path — data lives at data, configuration under config/. The CLI's -w path value writes to any of them; with curl you PUT or POST to the same paths. See the API guide for the full mental model.

The config/type value decides how your data is drawn. Set it to bar:

novem -p letter_freq -w config/type bar

The same data can be re-drawn as any compatible type later — try hbar (horizontal) or line once you're done. The chart reference lists them all.

novem -p letter_freq -w config/title \
"Frequency of letters in the English language"

novem -p letter_freq -w config/caption \
"Source: Concise Oxford Dictionary, via Robert Lewand's Cryptological Mathematics."

Your plot renders everywhere — including your terminal:

# ANSI render, right in the terminal
novem -p letter_freq -x

# the shareable web URL
novem -p letter_freq -r url

The URL looks like https://novem.io/u/<your_username>/p/letter_freq — open it in a browser for the interactive version. PNG, PDF, CSV and ANSI renders of every plot live under its files/ path.

Plots are private until you say otherwise. Make it public:

novem -p letter_freq -C -s public

Now anyone with the URL can see it — embed it in a mail or a document, or post the link.

  • Style it — colors, axes, legends and more under plot config.
  • Try other chart types — the bar chart reference shows stacked and grouped variants; tables, maps and more in the chart overview.
  • Automate it — the jobs quick start keeps a plot updating on a schedule.
  • Skip the typing — connect an AI agent over MCP (see the introduction) and describe the plot you want.
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