Mermaid error

A Markdown list is not a Mermaid mindmap

Reproduced on Mermaid 11.17.2 · Updated 11 September 2026

A Markdown list is not a Mermaid mindmap in Mermaid. The exact parser message, why it happens, and corrected source that renders.

What Mermaid says

No diagram type detected matching given configuration for text: - Product
  - Research
    - Interviews

Why it happens

Mermaid mindmaps use indentation, not Markdown bullets, and the block still needs the mindmap keyword. A bulleted outline matches no diagram type at all.

The source that fails

- Product
  - Research
    - Interviews

How to fix it

Start the block with mindmap, remove the bullet characters and keep the indentation that expresses the hierarchy.

mindmap
  root((Product))
    Research
      Interviews

Next steps

Paste your own version into the Mermaid repair tool, which applies this correction and fourteen others and shows every change. The related page covers the surrounding syntax, and the error dictionary lists every message.