Sharing and permissions

flowss gives you several ways to put your work in front of someone else, and each one behaves differently. A share link carries the document inside its own address, so anyone you send it to gets a copy. A project link bundles several Studio figures onto one read-only page. An embed puts a live diagram into another website. A live session lets people edit with you in real time (see Live collaboration). A shared cloud project in the Studio gives named people a lasting role (owner, editor, commenter or viewer) on a workspace saved to your account. This page explains every one of these: where the controls are, what the person on the other end sees, who can do what, the plan each one needs, the limits, and the messages you may meet.

At a glance

Warning: A share link, a project link and an embed URL all contain the diagram itself. Anyone who has the link can read the diagram, and there is no way to password-protect or withdraw a link once it is sent. Treat every such link as public.

The Share button

Every studio people work in together has a Share button at the top right of the screen. On a wide screen it is the one filled button there; on a phone it shows as an icon. While a live session is running, Share wears a small red dot. Clicking it opens the Share panel, which is built from up to four groups of rows:

At the bottom of the live-session group, How live sessions work opens a short explainer. The word in the detail lines is the studio's own name for its document: diagram, flow, figure, sketch, document or review.

What Share offers in each studio

Note: While you are working inside a shared cloud project in the Studio, the Share panel has no Live session group: live presence and voice are paused for private projects (see "Shared cloud projects in the Studio" below). The link, Send to and extra rows are still there.

You can also copy a share link without opening the panel: in the Studio, Weave, Science, BPMN and the Lab, press ⌘K (Ctrl+K on Windows and Linux) and run Copy share link. In your Library, a document card's menu has Copy share link for documents that carry diagram source; a document too large for a link is refused with "This document is too large for a share link (N KB — the limit is about 8 KB). Export it instead."

Share links: the document in the address

How a share link works

A share link does not point at a file stored somewhere. The whole document is compressed and written into the link itself. flowss keeps no copy, so there is nothing on our side to delete, expire or lock. This has four consequences you should know:

• Anyone who has the link can open and read the document, whether you meant them to or not.
• The link cannot be password-protected, revoked or made to expire.
• The link is a snapshot. Editing your document afterwards does not change what the link opens; copy a fresh link to share the new version.
• The person who opens it gets their own copy. Their edits never reach you, and yours never reach them.

There are two forms of link, and they differ in one important way:

Note: When you paste a Studio share link into a chat app that shows previews, the preview card shows a title (the diagram's title line, or its first plain line of source) and a summary built from the first few lines of the source. If those lines are confidential, do not paste the link anywhere a preview will be generated.

Copy a share link from the Studio

1. Open the figure you want to share.
2. Click Share at the top right.
3. Click Copy link. You see "Share link copied".
4. Paste the link wherever you like.

If the diagram is too big for a link, nothing is copied and you see "This diagram is too large for a share link (N KB — the limit is about 8 KB). Export it, or share the project live." Use an export (see Exporting your work), a project link if the problem is one figure among several, or a shared cloud project.

What each studio says when you copy

Weave and Science documents can hold imported images, which are stored inside the document. Images are what usually push a board past the 1 MB ceiling.

What the person you send it to sees

Every studio asks visitors to sign in, so the recipient needs a flowss account. A free account opens Studio and Sketch links. Links to Weave, Science, BPMN and Lab open only for an account whose plan includes that studio (Starter or above); anyone else is taken to the pricing page. If they have to sign in first, the link is carried through sign-in and opens afterwards.

On a free account that already holds the maximum number of figures in the Studio (3), a shared diagram still opens so it can be read and edited, but it is not saved as one of their figures, and the title at the top left of the Studio ends "(not saved)". They see a message that starts "This shared diagram is open to read and edit, but it isn't saved as one of your figures" and explains how to keep it: delete a figure to make room, then choose Keep this shared diagram in the figure list, or upgrade to Starter. The message carries a See plans button.

If a link has been damaged (cut short by a chat app, for example) or was made for an engine that no longer exists, the Studio says "This share link couldn't be opened — it may be damaged, or made for an engine this build doesn't have. Your own workspace is shown instead." and nothing of theirs is changed.

The recipient can also paste a share link into the Studio's import door: ⌘K → Open a link… accepts share links along with Mermaid Live, PlantUML server, Kroki and GitHub raw links. See Importing and converting.

Project links: several figures on one page

A project link bundles every figure in your Studio workspace into one link that opens a read-only page at /project. It is the quickest way to send someone a set of related diagrams, possibly made with different engines, without asking them to sign in.

Copy a project link

1. In the Studio, make sure the figures you want to send are in your workspace. The link includes all of them.
2. Click Share. The Copy project link row appears when you have two or more figures; its detail line reads "All N figures in one link".
3. Click it. You see "Project link copied (N figures)".

The project page is titled "flowss project". Like a share link, a project link carries every figure's source in the address and is limited to 8,000 characters. If it would be longer you see "These figures are too large for one link — split the project, or share it live." Move some figures out of the workspace, or use a shared cloud project instead.

The project page

Anyone can open a project link without an account. The page shows:

• an eyebrow line "Project · N figures", the project title and, when there is one, a description;
• Engines used: followed by a chip for each engine in the project;
• the project's action buttons;
• every figure in order, each labelled "Figure 1", "Figure 2" and so on, with its title, an engine chip and the rendered diagram.

Note: At the moment, Copy figure link and Open in workstation work as described only for Weave figures. For figures made with other engines they lead back to a "Project not loaded" page. To edit those figures, use Fork to Studio, which brings every figure into your Studio as your own copy.

If several people have the same project link open at the same time, they see each other's cursors, and a small badge in the bottom-right corner counts the other people viewing ("1 person here", "N people here"). Signed-in visitors appear under their name (or the first part of their email address); everyone else appears as "Guest". A cursor that stops moving for five seconds disappears.

Project pages are marked so that search engines do not index them, and they unfurl in chat apps with a preview card for the project.

Forking a project into the Studio

Fork to Studio adds each figure to the visitor's Studio as a new figure, in front of anything they already have. Nothing of theirs is replaced. On a free account:

• if there is room for only some of the figures, the first ones are added and a message says "Only N of this project's M figures were added — free accounts keep 3 figures in a studio. Nothing of yours was touched; upgrade to Starter for unlimited figures.";
• if there is no room at all, the first figure opens as an unsaved view (as described for share links above), with a See all N button that goes back to the project page.

Presenting a project

Present turns the project into a slideshow. Each slide shows the figure's engine, a counter such as "2 / 5", the figure's title and the rendered figure. Along the top are Fullscreen and Exit; along the bottom are Prev, a row of dots you can click to jump to a slide, and Next.

If the slideshow address has no project in it, or the project cannot be read, you see "Couldn't load project" with Browse sample projects.

Having AI compose a project

At /project/new (the AI Project Composer, "Describe a project. Get a dossier.") you describe a project in plain words and AI composes three to five figures across different engines, then opens the result as a project page you can share.

1. Type your description in the box (up to 4,000 characters; the counter shows how many you have used), or pick one of the examples under Try one: "Mobile-app launch readiness", "Hospital triage redesign", "Series A fundraise plan" or "Solar installation project".
2. Click Compose project, or press ⌘↵ (Ctrl+Enter). The button is disabled until you have typed at least 8 characters, and reads Composing project… while it works.
3. The finished project opens on its project page, ready to share with Copy project link.

If something goes wrong, the reason appears in red under the box. Browse the curated gallery at the bottom of the page takes you to finished sample projects instead. This uses AI, so it spends AI points or runs on your own key; see AI points and limits.

Embeds

An embed shows a live, read-only diagram inside another page: Notion, Confluence, a blog, a README. Embed URLs carry the diagram in the same way share links do.

The Studio dialog warns you before you copy when the embed URL is longer than about 8,000 bytes, the point at which many host pages truncate or refuse URLs and the embed breaks silently; the Weave dialog shows its own size warnings above the snippets. Everything about embeds, including the /embed viewer, the embed.js script and the render API, is on Embedding and the render API.

Shared cloud projects in the Studio

What a shared project is

A shared project is your Studio workspace (every figure in it) saved to your account as a project, with a member list. Each member has a role. Unlike a share link, there is one copy that everyone works on, and access can be granted, changed and taken away.

• A shared project opens in the Studio at an address of the form /studio?project=…. Only members (and, for team projects, the team) can open it; anyone else sees "That project doesn't exist, or you don't have access to it."
• It appears in your Library under the Cloud chip, where the owner can rename and delete it.
• Your own personal workspace is set aside while you are inside a project and comes back when you leave it.

How changes travel between members:

• Your edits are saved to the project about 1.2 seconds after you stop changing things, and again when you switch away from the tab or close it.
• When a member saves, the other members' Studios are told and fetch the new version within moments. As a safety net, an open Studio also checks for changes on its own: every 30 seconds, or every two minutes while its notification channel is connected. A check that finds the project unchanged does not download it again.
• A Studio tab in the background does not check on a timer. It catches up the moment you bring it back to the front.
• The whole project is versioned. If two people save conflicting changes at nearly the same moment, the second save is refused rather than overwriting the first, and that person's sync pauses with "This project changed on another device. Sync paused to preserve your local edits; export them before reopening the project." Nothing is lost: the paused member's edits stay on their screen to export.

Note: Live cursors, presence and voice are temporarily unavailable inside private projects. You may see "Live presence, voice and screen sharing are temporarily unavailable in private projects. Saved projects and comments still work." Saving, syncing between members and comments all work. To edit together in real time with cursors and voice, use a public live session from outside a project; see Live collaboration.

Plans and shared projects

If the owner later moves to a plan without shared projects, their existing invitations stop working: anyone who opens one sees "This project's plan no longer includes shared projects, so the invite can't be accepted. Ask the owner to upgrade and send a new one." Members already on the project keep their access.

Open the Collaborate panel

The Collaborate panel is where you create, open and manage shared projects. It opens in the Studio's right-hand side panel, which also holds the flowss Studio Agent and Comments, with a switcher at its top to move between the three. Open it in any of these ways:

• Share → Invite to a project;
• ⌘K → Collaborate (listed under "Go to"; its description reads "Share this project and edit live with your team"), or the command Collaborate — share this project live;
• ⌘K → Collaborate: share & copy a friend link, which runs that action straight away (see below);
• the side panel's switcher, when the flowss Studio Agent or Comments is already open;
• opening a project invite link, which opens the panel for you.

The panel's header reads Collaborate, with "Share a workspace and build together in real time" underneath. A Live badge appears beside the name while you are inside a shared project; it means you are working in the project, not that anyone else is connected right now. Teams → opens /teams. The close button (or Esc) puts the panel away.

If you are signed out, the panel says "Sign in to create shared projects and collaborate with your team in real time."

Create a shared project

When you are not in a project, the panel shows a Start collaborating card with two buttons:

To create one:

1. Open the figures you want to share in your Studio workspace. Every figure in the workspace goes into the project.
2. Open Collaborate.
3. Click Share this workspace as a live project, or Share & copy a friend link if you want an invite link on your clipboard at once.
4. The panel switches to the project view, where you can invite people.

If you run Collaborate: share & copy a friend link from ⌘K while you are already inside a project, it does not create a new project. It copies an editor invite link to the project you are in and says "Invite link copied for the project you're in. Anyone with the link can join and edit live with you after signing in."

A project's workspace can be up to 2 MB. Bigger workspaces are refused with "Workspace too large (>2 MB)." or "Workspace too large to save — split it into smaller projects."

The Kickoff agent

Under the share buttons, Kickoff agent asks the flowss Studio Agent to draft a starter diagram from a one-line idea, ready to share.

1. Type your idea in the box (the placeholder suggests "Onboarding flow for a mobile bank").
2. Press Enter or click Draft a starter to share. The button reads Drafting… while it works.
3. AI picks a suitable engine and writes a first draft. The Studio reloads with the draft added as a new figure named after its engine (for example "Shared Mermaid diagram"), exactly as if someone had sent you a share link. From there you can share it like any other figure, or click Share this workspace as a live project.

The button is disabled until you type an idea (its tooltip then reads "Describe your project idea first"). Kickoff uses the flowss Studio Agent, so it spends AI points or runs on your own key. If nothing usable comes back you see "The flowss Studio Agent didn't return a diagram — try a more specific idea."; if the request fails you see the reason, or "Could not draft a starter." On a free account whose Studio already holds 3 figures, the draft opens as an unsaved view, as described for share links above.

Your shared projects

Below the card, Your shared projects lists every cloud project you own or belong to. Each row shows a crown and an Owner badge for projects you own, or your role (Editor, Commenter or Viewer) for the others, and an Open button. Open loads the project into your Studio; your own workspace is backed up first and restored when you leave.

With no projects yet, the list shows "None yet…" with "Share a workspace to start a live project, or open an invite link a teammate sent you." and a Share this workspace button.

Inside a project: every control

Once a project is open, the panel shows its name, the member count and these controls:

Messages and errors appear at the bottom of the panel: notices in blue, errors in red.

Roles and what they allow

A project has one owner, the person who created it. The panel has no control for transferring ownership, and the owner cannot be removed or demoted: you will see "The owner can't be removed. Transfer or delete the project instead." or "The project owner's role can't be lowered."

Warning: The Studio does not lock the editor for viewers and commenters. If you have one of those roles and change a figure, the change stays on your screen but is never saved to the project, and project sync stops with "Project editing access changed. Sync stopped; your local work is still available to export." Ask the owner for the editor role if you need to edit.

Invite someone by email

1. Open the project and its Collaborate panel. You must be the owner.
2. Type the person's address in the email box.
3. Choose Editor, Commenter or Viewer.
4. Click Invite, or press Enter in the email box.
5. You see "Invited address — we've emailed them a link to join, and copied it to your clipboard. They'll appear here once they accept."

How email invitations behave:

• Nobody is added to a project without accepting. The person appears in the member list only after they join.
• The invitation works only for an account signed in with that same address. Anyone else who opens it sees "This invite is for a different email address."
• It can be used once. Opening it again after joining shows "This invite has already been used. Ask the project owner to send a new one."
• Inviting the same address again withdraws the earlier, unused invitation, so only the newest role offer can be accepted.
• Inviting someone already on the project is refused with "*address* is already on this project — change their role from the member list instead."
• Invitations expire after 30 days.
• To protect inboxes, one address can receive at most 8 invitations a day, and one account can send at most 100 a day. The counts start again at midnight UTC. Past either limit you see "Too many invitations from here today. Share a project link instead, or try again tomorrow."

Invite with a link

Copy link creates a join link at the role selected in the role list and puts it on your clipboard. Unlike an email invitation, a link is not tied to an address: anyone signed in who opens it can join at that role, and it can be used again and again until it expires 30 days after it was made.

The link has the form /studio?invite=…. Send it only to people you mean to add, and pick the lowest role that does the job.

Each click of Copy link makes a new link, and the panel does not list the links you have made. You cannot withdraw one link on its own, but you can withdraw all of them at once.

Withdraw every invite link

If a link has gone somewhere it should not (pasted into the wrong channel, forwarded on), withdraw them all:

1. Open the project's Collaborate panel. You must be the owner.
2. Click Withdraw links, beside Copy link.
3. Confirm the prompt: "Withdraw every share link for this project? Anyone holding one can no longer join with it. People already on the project keep their access."
4. You see "Share links withdrawn — none of them opens any more. Use Copy link to share a fresh one."

What this does and does not do:

Anyone who opens a withdrawn link sees "This invite link has been revoked. Ask the project owner for a new one." Use Copy link to make a fresh one for the people you still want to invite.

When invite links stop working

Invite links also stop working by themselves when:

• they reach 30 days old;
• you remove a member (every invite link to the project is withdrawn so that person cannot rejoin through one, along with any email invitation still waiting for their address; you see "Removed. The project's share links were withdrawn so they can't rejoin through one — use Copy link to share a fresh one.");
• you lower someone's role (links at roles higher than their new one are withdrawn, so leaving and rejoining cannot undo the change);
• the person who made the link is no longer an owner of the project;
• the owner's plan no longer includes shared projects.

Joining a project from an invitation

When you open an invite link while signed in, the Studio opens the Collaborate panel and shows an invitation card. Nothing happens until you choose.

The card reads "Join project as you?" followed by "You'd join as an editor." (or a commenter, a viewer) and "Joining shows your name and your email to everyone on this project, and opens it in your studio. Only join projects you recognise — nothing happens until you choose."

1. Check the project name and role.
2. Click Join project to join (it reads Joining… while it works), or Not now to dismiss the card without joining.
3. After joining, the project opens in your Studio and the panel says "You've joined project."

If you are already on the project, or your team already gives you at least that role, the card reads "You're already on *project*" with "This invite would not change anything — you're an editor there." Choose Open project to open it, or Dismiss.

The invite is removed from the address bar as soon as the Studio has read it, whether or not the card can be shown, so reloading the page or sharing your address does not pass the invitation on. If you were signed out when you opened the link, sign in; the link is carried through sign-in.

Managing members

As the owner, use the role list on a member's row to change their role, or the bin icon to remove them. The member list always reloads afterwards, so it shows what the project really holds.

• A member who is removed loses access straight away, and every shareable link to the project is withdrawn. Make a fresh link with Copy link for anyone else you want to invite.
• If the project belongs to a team and the person you removed is also in that team, they keep the team's access. You see "Removed from the member list — but they still have viewer access through the team "*team*". Remove them from that team, or take the project out of the team, to end it." (or "editor access" for team owners and admins).
• Members cannot remove themselves from the panel. Leave only stops working on the project on that device; to come off the member list, ask the owner to remove you.

Leaving a project on this device

Leave takes you out of the project and restores the personal workspace you had before you opened it. If you created the project from your personal workspace, its figures stay yours. The project itself is not changed, you remain a member, and you can open it again from Your shared projects or the Library.

Teams and projects

If you belong to one or more teams, the owner can assign the project to a team with the Team: list. Access through a team is worked out each time someone opens the project:

A team never lowers a role that an invitation gave, and never makes anyone the project's owner. Taking someone out of the team, or taking the project out of the team, removes the access the team gave. A project in a team whose plan includes shared projects does not use its owner's free project slots. Teams are explained on Teams and organisations.

Renaming and deleting a shared project

Shared projects are renamed and deleted from the Library, by the owner only: the Library offers Rename and Delete on a cloud project only to its owner.

• Rename opens "Rename project" with a "Project name" box and a Rename button. You see "Renamed".
• Delete asks Delete for everyone? ("*name*" will be deleted from the cloud for everyone it is shared with. This can't be undone.) with a Delete project button. You see "Deleted "*name*"".

If another member's rename or delete reaches flowss some other way, it is refused with "Only the owner can rename the project." or "Only the owner can delete the project."

Who can see what

The member list shows each member's name, or their email address when there is no name on their account, and joining a project shares your name and email address with its members. The invitation card says so before anyone joins.

Tips

• Use a shared cloud project, not a share link, for anything confidential: access can be removed later, and the content never sits inside a link.
• When you need several figures to travel together, a project link is lighter than a shared project and needs no account to view.
• Pick the role before you click Copy link. The role list next to Invite sets the role for both buttons.
• For a quick review where people only read and comment, invite them as Commenter. They can add pinned comments but cannot change the figures.
• If a share link is refused as too large, check for long embedded data (a big dataset pasted into source, for example) or export a file instead.
• A share link opens as a new figure for the recipient, so sending a corrected version later never overwrites what they already have.

Limits and known constraints

• Share links cannot be password-protected, revoked or set to expire. There is no private-link option on any plan.
• Studio, BPMN and Lab share links and project links are limited to 8,000 characters; Weave and Science links to 1,000,000 characters.
• Every studio asks visitors to sign in. Weave, Science, BPMN and Lab links need a plan that opens that studio; the project page and embeds need no account.
• Sketch has no share link. Use a live session, an export or Send to.
• A shared cloud project can hold up to 2 MB of workspace.
• Invitations and invite links expire after 30 days. The panel does not list the links you have made; Withdraw links withdraws all of them at once, not one at a time.
• Each project has a single owner, and ownership cannot be transferred.
• Viewers and commenters are not blocked from editing locally; their changes are simply not saved to the project.
• Live presence, cursors and voice are temporarily unavailable inside private projects.
• Concurrent edits to a shared project are not merged: the later conflicting save pauses that member's sync.
• On the project page, Copy figure link and Open in workstation currently work only for Weave figures; use Fork to Studio for the rest.
• Members cannot take themselves off a project's member list from the panel; Leave only closes the project on that device.

Troubleshooting

Related pages

• Live collaboration
• Comments and review
• Teams and organisations
• Classrooms, cohorts and assignments
• Your library
• Moving work between studios
• Embedding and the render API
• Exporting your work
• Integrations and extensions
• Plans and what they include
• Privacy and your data