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flow family

timeline-chart

Chronological events plotted on a single time axis.

Single line marked with point-events at specific dates. Used for product roadmaps, regulatory milestones, company history.

When to use

Showing when things happened (or will happen), without explicit durations.

When NOT to use

Events have durations (use gantt) or you have continuous values (use line).

Rhetorical roles

  • evolve
  • system-explain

Variants & related

Required primitives

  • has_axis_titles
  • has_data_labels

Optional primitives

  • has_source_note

Common anti-patterns

  • mismatched-encoding

Disambiguation rules

  • Single horizontal/vertical line with markers labelled by date.
  • If markers have lengths (durations), it is gantt.
  • Often should_be_kind=chart but borderline with diagram if heavily illustrative.