Getting started
Flowline runs in your browser. Open the link your team shared, look around the demo, then sign in to build your own. Nothing to install.
After this chapter you can open the hosted app, explore the read-only demo, browse the storefront it tests, sign in with Google, and create your first workspace and project.
What you need
- The Flowline URL your team shared (something like
https://flowline.example.com). - A Chromium browser — Chrome or Edge. Firefox and Safari can't open a folder on your computer; the other storage choices work everywhere.
Open Flowline
Open the URL. You land on the home page: a short intro with three ways in.
- Try the demo — a finished project, open to everyone, no sign-in.
- See the product — the toy storefront the demo's flows are written against.
- Sign in — top-right, to create your own work.
Explore the demo
Click Try the demo. It opens Bramble Toys in read-only mode — two flows, thirteen scenarios, two suites with recorded runs, and two bugs. Pan and zoom the canvas, open the Player, Suites, and Sessions tabs, and select a card to read its inputs and branches in the inspector.
Nothing here can be changed — the demo is shared and read-only. To build your own, sign in. Chapter 05 breaks down what the demo contains.
See the product it tests
From the demo banner, click View the product, or open See the product on the home page. This is Bramble Toys, a storefront that stands in for the app under test: a catalog, product pages, a basket, and checkout. Each storefront screen links back to the flow card that covers it, so you can see how a journey on screen maps to a flow in Flowline.
Sign in and create your first project
- Click Sign in (top-right) and continue with Google (07).
- You land on your workspaces. A workspace is where your projects live. Click ✦ Use this browser (no setup) to start straight away.
- Type a name in New project name and click Create.
- Open the project and build something — Your first flow takes you from an empty canvas to a recorded run in about fifteen minutes.
Where your projects are kept
Flowline stores no project bytes on the server. You choose where they live, and the choice sets what else you can do:
| Choice | Projects live | Reachable from another computer | Reachable by MCP |
|---|---|---|---|
| ✦ Use this browser | In this browser's private storage | No | No |
| 📁 Open folder on my computer | A folder you pick | No | Through the flowline-mcp helper, not the server (09) |
| ☁ Connect Google Drive | Your Drive folder | Yes | Yes, once you connect the server to Drive |
Start in the browser, then move a project to Drive when you need it elsewhere — open it and click Move this project to a folder or Drive in the Sync panel. Chapter 08 covers sharing.
A browser workspace is erased if you clear site data. Move anything you care about to Drive or a folder.
Where to go next
| You want to… | Read |
|---|---|
| Build your first flow end to end | ▸ Your first flow |
| Build a flow from scratch | 01 · Flows and cards |
| Test one journey on Desktop and Mobile | 02 · Scenarios and platforms |
| Run a regression pass and read a pass-rate | 03 · Suites and runs |
| Walk a journey by hand and log a defect | 04 · Player and bugs |
| See what's inside the demo | 05 · Bramble Toys demo |
| Share projects and see who changed what | 08 · Working as a team |
| Reach the same projects from any computer | 07 · Using a hosted server |
| Let an assistant work on a folder on your computer | 09 · Edit a local folder |
| Look up a term, shortcut, or fix a problem | Reference |
Running Flowline yourself? Hosting, ports, and environment variables live in the operator guide, Hosting it yourself — it's outside the day-to-day reader path and not linked from these chapters.