This page defines the words flowss uses, in the sense it uses them. Learn these and the rest of the documentation, and the product's own messages, will read clearly. The first sections explain how the main ideas fit together. The rest is a reference glossary, grouped by theme, with the exact on-screen wording where it matters and a link to the page that covers each idea in depth.
At a glance
| Term | One-line meaning |
|---|---|
| Studio (workstation) | One of nine dedicated workspaces, each for one kind of work |
| Engine | The renderer behind a notation, such as Mermaid, Graphviz or FlowScript; there are 110 |
| Template | A ready-made, working example for one engine; there are 5,012 |
| Figure / document | One piece of work: a diagram, model, board, course or figure |
| Library | The one board, at /library, where your documents from every studio live |
| Vault | Named checkpoints of a studio's current document that you can restore |
| Handoff | Sending a document to another studio in that studio's native form |
| Readiness | One word for how finished a document is: Empty, Draft, Sound, Reviewed, Publishable |
| AI points | The hosted-AI allowance on Plus and Ultra; one standard AI call costs 1 point |
| BYOK | Bring your own key: using your own AI provider's key, from Starter up |
| Share link | A link that carries the compressed diagram itself; treat it as public |
| Team | A group with Owner, Admin and Member roles that shares projects (from Plus) |
| Cohort | A class in the Classroom, joined with a code, with assignments and submissions |
| FlowScript | The Lab's typed research language, whose numbers check themselves |
| Example data | Sample content the platform ships, marked "Example data — not real" everywhere it goes |
How the ideas fit together
You work in a studio. In the universal Studio you choose an engine and write or generate its source, often starting from a template. Each piece of work is a document; the Studio calls its documents figures, Sketch calls them boards, and Study builds courses. As you work, the studio runs checks and gives the document a readiness level. Your documents gather in the Library, follow you between devices through cloud sync, can be checkpointed in the Vault, and can be handed off to another studio. From any page, ⌘K (the command palette) finds them and ⌘J (the Flow Dock) picks up the thread. When you are ready, you export, share a link, embed the diagram, or work on it live with others. AI is optional throughout. It runs on AI points (Plus and up) or on your own key (Starter and up).
input (words, code, photo, sketch, data)
-> studio + engine -> document (source)
-> checks -> readiness (Empty, Draft, Sound, Reviewed, Publishable)
-> Library / Vault / cloud sync
-> handoff to another studio, or export / share / embed / liveThe platform
| Term | Meaning | More |
|---|---|---|
| flowss | The product's name, always in lower case. The formal name is Flow Systems Studio, and the operating company is Voranox Inc. | What flowss is |
| Platform | All nine studios plus the shared layer that joins them: the Library, the command palette, the Flow Dock, the Vault, cloud sync and the readiness model | Continuum |
| Studio, workstation | A dedicated workspace for one kind of work. The two words mean the same thing. There are nine: Studio, Study, Evidence, Lab, Weave, Science, Figure, BPMN and Sketch | What flowss is |
| The Studio | With a capital S, the universal canvas at /studio. It renders every engine that can be written as source, and it is free | The Studio editor |
| Universal canvas | Another name for the Studio, because any engine without a studio of its own opens there | Choosing an engine |
| Launchpad | The Studio's front door, headed "How would you like to …" with a rotating last word (begin?, create?, map it out?, visualise it?, break it down?), with the doors Describe it, Paste code and Pick an engine, plus Where you left off for returning users | Quickstart |
| Free studios | The Studio and the Sketch canvas, which every plan, including Free, can open. The other seven start on Starter | Plans |
| Locked studio | A studio your plan does not include. Opening it takes you to the pricing page, which says the studio "is part of Starter". In the Studio ▾ menu, locked studios show a lock and the word Starter | Plans |
| Display name and address | Two studios have addresses that differ from their names: Weave lives at /lucidflow and Evidence lives at /atlas. The addresses are permanent, so links never break. The old address /biology redirects to /science, and /scholar is part of Study | What flowss is |
Engines, templates and source
| Term | Meaning | More |
|---|---|---|
| Engine | The renderer for one notation or chart type, such as Mermaid, PlantUML, Graphviz, D2, Vega-Lite, Plotly, KaTeX, Wardley, PRISMA, the causal DAG engine, FlowScript or BPMN. flowss ships 110, of which 108 open on the Studio canvas | Engines |
| Notation | The language an engine reads. Most engines read text; BPMN and Weave are edited visually | Choosing an engine |
| Engine catalogue | The searchable list of engines, opened from Engines & templates on the Studio rail (shortcut /) or the launchpad's Pick an engine door | Choosing an engine |
| Engine domain | A grouping used in engine pickers: Flow & UML, Flow systems, Risk & reliability, Quality & control, Architecture, Charts & data, Schemas & layouts, Research & analysis, Engineering & physical and Domain-specific. Anything else falls under More. See the full list in What flowss is | Choosing an engine |
| Dedicated studio | The home studio for an engine that needs more than a text editor: BPMN opens in BPMN, the Weave canvas in Weave, and FlowScript in the Lab. FlowScript can also be rendered on the Studio canvas | Moving work between studios |
| Source, code | The text a diagram is made from. In the Studio it lives in the code sheet (Show code, ⌘\) and re-renders as you type | The Studio editor |
| Render | Turning source into the picture. Most engines render in your browser or on flowss's own servers | The Studio editor |
| Render service | An outside service that draws a few engines: a PlantUML server (the public plantuml.com, unless self-hosted) for PlantUML, and Kroki for a small set of other engines. Your source is relayed by flowss's server to that service (flowss does not store or log it), and the code sheet says so under the engine name | Security at flowss |
| Template | A ready-made, working example written for one engine, with a title and description. There are 5,012. A template written for BPMN, Weave or the Lab opens in that studio | The template gallery |
| Template category | One of 17 groupings in the gallery: UML & Software, Flow & Process, Data & Schema, Architecture, Project & Planning, Research & Academic, Scientific Plots, Mathematics, Life Sciences, Chemistry & Physics, Geo & Spatial, Business & Strategy, Operations & Ops, AI & Pipelines, Lean & Flow, Risk & Reliability, and Custom / SVG | The template gallery |
| Starter template | The example an engine opens with when you pick it on the launchpad or with ?engine= in a link | Starting from a template |
| Starter snippet | The one-line suggestion shown on an empty figure, which inserts a minimal starting point when you select it | The Studio editor |
| Format source | Tidies the source's layout without changing what it draws (⇧⌥F). Offered for engines that support it | The Studio editor |
| Convert, transpile | Convert to another engine… rewrites a diagram in another notation. It is instant where a direct converter (a transpiler) exists for the pair; for any other pair it is done by AI | Importing and converting |
| Import | Bringing outside material in: files, links, photos, schemas (SQL, DBML, draw.io) and data | Importing and converting |
| Photo to Engine | Rebuilding a photo of a whiteboard, sketch or printout as editable diagram source. Uses AI | Importing and converting |
| Data → Chart | The Studio panel (⌘D) that turns pasted or uploaded CSV, TSV or JSON records into a chart. It detects column types and lets you choose the axes. (In Weave and Sketch, ⌘D duplicates the selection instead) | Data, timeline, TikZ and the diagram tools |
| Click-to-edit | Selecting a label on the rendered diagram to rename it, recolour it or delete it, with the change written back into the source | The Studio editor |
| Layout direction | Which way a diagram reads: top-down, left-right, bottom-up or right-left. You can cycle it from Style without AI | Styling, themes and layout |
| Style preset | A one-click restyle (Nature journal, IEEE / publication, Okabe-Ito and others). It keeps the content and changes colours, type and strokes, and is applied by AI | Styling, themes and layout |
| Icon library | The searchable icon panel (⌘I): about 34,000 icons bundled for offline use, plus a larger online catalogue of 200,000+ icons. Online searches are relayed by flowss's server to Iconify, so the words you search for leave your browser; the bundled sets are searched locally | The icon library |
Your work
| Term | Meaning | More |
|---|---|---|
| Document | One piece of work in any studio. The general word the Library uses | Your library |
| Figure | A document in the Studio. The Studio holds several figures at once; switch between them from the title menu or with ⌥⌘← and ⌥⌘→, and make a new one with ⌥⌘N | The Studio editor |
| Board | A document in Sketch | Sketch |
| Untitled diagram | The placeholder title of a new Studio figure until you rename it (up to 120 characters) | The Studio editor |
| Workspace | Everything a studio is currently holding, for example all your Studio figures | Cloud sync, offline work and devices |
| Cloud project | A project saved to your account in the cloud Library. A project holds one or more figures. Free accounts keep 3 | Your library |
| Document cap | On Free, each studio's document list keeps 3 documents, and the cloud Library keeps 3 projects. When full, a new document is refused with a message saying so; nothing you already have is archived, deleted or made read-only. Starter and up have no cap | Plans |
| Shared view | A diagram someone sent you that opens in the Studio while your figure list is full. You can read and edit it, but it is not kept as one of your figures until you make room and choose Keep this shared diagram in the figure list. Its title shows "(not saved)" | Sharing and permissions |
| Autosave | Every studio saves the current document to your browser as you work, a moment after each edit. There is no save button to remember | Cloud sync, offline work and devices |
| Status glyph | The small indicator beside a document's title: a spinner while saving, a check when saved with nothing to report, a drive icon when work is saved in this browser only, a count coloured by the worst severity when there are findings, or a red Not saved pill when the browser refused the last save. Select it, or press ⇧⌘M, for the status popover | A tour of the workspace |
| Library | The board at /library that holds your documents from every studio (Figure included), your cloud projects and your Evidence investigations. You can search, tag, star, sort by Recent, Name, Studio or Needs work, save views, and switch between grid and list | Your library |
| Trash | Where deleted Library documents wait for 30 days before they are removed for good. You can restore them from there | Version history and undo |
| Vault | Named checkpoints of a studio's current document, saved from the Flow Dock's Vault section (Save document to Vault), which you can restore whenever you like. Available in Weave, Lab, BPMN, Science, Figure and Sketch. It holds up to 40 checkpoints, and one checkpoint can be at most about 400 KB. When you save into a full Vault, the oldest checkpoint is removed to make room and the confirmation ("Checkpoint saved — …") names it. Restoring first takes a safety copy of what is open | Version history and undo |
| Checkpoint | One saved copy in the Vault. Deleting one can be undone for six seconds | Version history and undo |
| Diagram timeline, version history | Named revisions of a Studio figure, with diffs between them (Version history…, ⇧⌘H). Sketch keeps its own version history on Starter and up | Version history and undo |
| Undo | ⌘Z undoes and ⇧⌘Z redoes edits in the current document, including AI edits and canvas fixes | Version history and undo |
| Cloud sync | While you are signed in, on every plan, your workspace, your Library and your Vault are copied to your account automatically so they follow you between devices. In the Library, documents known to either device are kept and, if both changed the same document, the newer edit wins; for a studio's open canvas, a conflicting second copy is set aside in the Vault rather than lost. Sync cannot currently be switched off | Cloud sync, offline work and devices |
| Saved in this browser only | The save state shown when work is kept in this browser and nowhere else, for example while you are signed out. Browsers can clear site storage, so sign in to back the work up | Cloud sync, offline work and devices |
| Sync health banner | A notice at the bottom left (at the top on studios with the island layout) that reports cloud sync failures or a browser that has stopped saving | Cloud sync, offline work and devices |
Moving between studios
| Term | Meaning | More |
|---|---|---|
| Handoff, Send to | Delivering the current document to another studio in that studio's native form, converting where needed. Reach it from ⋮ → Send to (in the Studio, Send to another studio… opens the Flow Dock), from a studio's Share panel where it offers a send control, or from the Flow Dock's Take it further | Moving work between studios |
| Can receive, can send | Not every studio does both. Studio, Weave, Lab, BPMN and Science both receive and send. Study and Evidence receive any diagram but send nothing onward. Figure and Sketch send but do not receive a diagram | Moving work between studios |
| Take it further | The Flow Dock's shortcuts for handing on what you are looking at: Research it (to Evidence, which builds an evidence scaffold), Study it (to Study, which turns it into a course), or To followed by a studio's name, such as To Weave | Moving work between studios |
| Journey | The Flow Dock's list of recent handoffs, shown as "From → To · title · time" | Moving work between studios |
| Continue | Your latest work in other studios, shown at the top of the Flow Dock and the command palette | A tour of the workspace |
| Flow Dock | The floating panel opened with ⌘J (Ctrl+J), or from its pill (drag the pill to move it; double-click to snap it home). It contains a live-session row, Continue, Take it further, Vault and Journey, plus a Feedback box | A tour of the workspace |
| Flow console | The page at /flow that shows where each piece of work stands, what it is part of and the next move worth making, and flags disagreements between documents | Flow |
| Command palette | ⌘K (Ctrl+K) on any page. It searches engines, templates, screens ("Go to"), actions and your own work ("Your work"), with a live preview. Its sections include Do this, The whole job, Go to, Navigate, Actions, Engines, Templates and Your work | Keyboard shortcuts |
| Go to | Palette results that switch the screen you are on within the current studio, such as a panel or mode | Keyboard shortcuts |
| The whole job | When what you type needs more than one step, the palette proposes a programme: a sequence of steps across studios, each with the reason it is there | The work model |
Quality and readiness
| Term | Meaning | More |
|---|---|---|
| Check | A deterministic rule a studio runs as you work, such as equation balance in Science, cohort arithmetic in the Lab, soundness in BPMN, journal preflight in Figure, or overlapping nodes in Weave. Checks never guess, and each finding says what is wrong | What flowss is |
| Finding, problem | One thing a check found, with a severity of error, warning or info. Findings appear under Problems in the status popover; select one to jump to its line | A tour of the workspace |
| Safe fix | A repair that cannot lose your work, applied in one undoable step, for example Fix all safe in Weave or Fix N safe in the status popover of studios that offer it (such as BPMN). A fix that would delete something waits for you to confirm it | Weave |
| Readiness | One word for how finished a document is, earned by evidence rather than declared. It appears in each studio's status popover, on Library cards and in the Flow console | The work model |
| Needs work | The Library sort that puts the least-finished documents first | Your library |
| Verify | The mechanical stage: does the source parse, is it complete, do its references resolve, does its arithmetic reconcile, is its science right. It is the only required stage | The work model |
| Critique | A quality read across seven dimensions, each scored from 0 to 100%, with every finding naming the edit that would improve it. A critique never blocks anything | The work model |
| Soundness (BPMN) | The formal BPMN property that every case can finish, finishes exactly once, and every step can run. The BPMN studio decides it with a state-space search and reports it separately from readiness | BPMN |
| Preflight | Checking a figure against a destination's rules before you export it: column width, type-size floors, contrast, colour-vision safety, embedded assets and alt text | Publishing, provenance and compliance in Lab |
The readiness levels
| Level | What it means | What moves it up |
|---|---|---|
| Empty | There is nothing here yet that anyone would miss | Put something in it: a first node, pasted source, or a description to build from |
| Draft | It exists, and something in it is mechanically broken | Clear the blocking defects. A document that does not parse is not yet a draft of anything |
| Sound | Every mechanical check passes: it parses, it is complete, and its references resolve | Take a quality read and act on the top findings. Sound is not the same as good |
| Reviewed | A quality read was taken and it held up: an overall score of at least 70%, with no dimension below 60% | Close the accessibility and portability findings, so it survives someone else opening it |
| Publishable | It would survive being opened by someone who did not make it: at least 86% overall, with no dimension below 75% | This is the top level |
In the BPMN studio, the level called Sound everywhere else is shown as Checked. That's because "sound" has a stricter formal meaning in BPMN (see Soundness above). A dimension the platform cannot assess for a given document is left out of the score rather than counted as a pass, and the number of unassessed dimensions is stated.
The critique dimensions
| Dimension | The question it asks |
|---|---|
| Fidelity | Is this what was asked for? |
| Completeness | Is it the whole thing, or a sketch of it? |
| Structure | Is the shape sound? |
| Legibility | Can a reader take it in? |
| Rigour | Do the numbers carry their weight? (only for engines that plot numbers) |
| Accessibility | Can everyone read it? Colour pairs are simulated under three kinds of colour-vision deficiency and in greyscale |
| Portability | Will it survive leaving here? |
The seven stages of work
| Stage | Question | Required? |
|---|---|---|
| Intake | What have I got? | No |
| Frame | What am I actually making? | No |
| Build | Make the thing. | No |
| Verify | Is it sound? | Yes |
| Critique | Is it any good? | No |
| Refine | What would make it better? | No |
| Publish | Can someone else open it? | No |
Example data
| Term | Meaning | More |
|---|---|---|
| Example data — not real | The mark flowss puts on content it ships as an example, so it is never mistaken for real results. The Figure studio's sample datasets and the Lab's reporting-guideline starters carry it, and the Evidence studio's example studies are labelled "(fictional)" in their titles | Lab |
| Where the mark appears | In the studio itself, at the start of any generated Methods paragraph or preflight text ("Example data — not real: these values are an example that ships with the platform, not data from a study."), and stamped on every export. The stamp is a faint, slightly tilted "EXAMPLE DATA" word-mark across the middle plus a small amber "Example data — not real" pill at the bottom-right corner | Figure |
| Removing the mark | Replace the example with your own material. In the Lab, the starter opens with a line beginning "Every string below is EXAMPLE text from a fictional…"; once you have replaced the values, delete that line and the mark goes with it. In Figure, replacing the sample rows with your own data removes it | Reporting standards |
AI
| Term | Meaning | More |
|---|---|---|
| Hosted AI | AI that flowss runs for you and charges in AI points. Included on Plus (200 points a month), Ultra (600) and Enterprise (600). Free and Starter have no hosted allowance. If hosted AI is ever not switched on, the pricing page says so and no plan is billed for points | AI in flowss |
| AI points | The unit of hosted AI. The monthly allowance resets at the start of each calendar month (UTC), and unused allowance does not roll over | AI points and limits |
| Point costs | 1 point for a standard AI call, 4 for an Architect run, 8 for an agent run and 47 for a deep-specialist run. An attached image adds 2. A multi-step flow costs the sum of its steps | AI points and limits |
| Top-up pack | Extra points bought once from your account page: 100 points for $5 or 500 points for $20. Only plans with a hosted allowance can buy them. Purchased points never expire and are used only after the monthly allowance runs out | AI points and limits |
| BYOK, your own key | Using an API key from your own AI provider, so the provider bills you and no points are spent. Starts on Starter. Eight providers are supported: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, DeepSeek, Alibaba Qwen, Zhipu GLM, Moonshot Kimi and Mistral. Add your key in the Studio under Settings → Bring your own API key (⌘, opens Settings) or on your account page | Bring your own AI key |
| Unmetered, fair-use ceiling | Calls on your own key are not metered in points. A fair-use ceiling of 1,000 AI requests a day per account, of which at most 300 can be agent runs, bounds runaway scripts | Bring your own AI key |
| No AI on Free | Free has neither hosted points nor your own key. Everything that isn't AI keeps working, and an AI request gets a message beginning "The free plan has no AI at all" | Plans |
| AI prompt | The bar at the bottom of the Studio, Describe a diagram or a change…. Press ⌘/ to jump to it. It has two modes: Quick makes a single change in place, and Agent hands the request to the flowss Studio Agent for multi-step work | The flowss Studio Agent: prompt and quick help |
| flowss Studio Agent pane | The Studio's agent pane (⌘E, also ⇧⌘A), where multi-step agent runs happen and where you choose a specialist. It shares the right-hand drawer with the Collaborate and Comments panels. Each run's changes can be undone as a whole | The flowss Studio Agent and its modes |
| Studio agents | Every studio has its own named agent: the flowss Studio Agent, flowss Study Agent, flowss Evidence Agent, flowss Weave Agent, flowss Science Agent, flowss Figure Agent, flowss Lab Agent, flowss BPMN Agent and flowss Sketch Agent, plus the flowss Library Agent, flowss Teams Agent and flowss Support Agent | AI in flowss |
| Specialist | A preset role with one job, which a studio's agent takes on. The presets are Build / edit diagram, Review & fix, Import to diagram, Update from source, Science Studio specialist, Science (engines), Methods & statistics review, Lab methodologist, Visual designer (Weave), Process architect (BPMN), Sketch interpreter, Data & charts, Systems architect, Teaching specialist, Evidence & synthesis, the stage specialists below, and the Conductor | The flowss Studio Agent and its modes |
| Stage specialist | A specialist defined as much by what it refuses to do: the Framing analyst never builds; the Verifier (adjudicate, do not fix) and the Critic (judge, do not fix) say their limits in their names; the Refinement pass must measure the improvement it claims; and the Publication preflight checks against the destination's rules | The work model |
| Conductor | Conductor (multi-studio): a deep specialist that plans and carries work across studios. It is priced as a deep-specialist run (47 points) | The flowss Studio Agent and its modes |
| Architect mode | A fixed four-step AI run (plan, build, critique, refine), priced at 4 points | The flowss Studio Agent: prompt and quick help |
| Auto-fix, auto-repair | When a diagram fails to render, AI repairs the source (render, then AI, then re-render), and you can always undo the result. The Studio setting Repair broken diagrams automatically controls whether this happens without asking; it is on by default, which means a broken diagram's source is sent to the AI provider without a prompt. Turn it off with Turn auto-repair off, and a broken diagram stays exactly as you wrote it and the error is reported instead. It uses AI, so it follows your plan's AI rules | The flowss Studio Agent: prompt and quick help |
| Resident | The Studio's quiet companion: a small dot at the bottom left of the canvas that runs deterministic structural checks and, when it has something worth saying, offers one fix you can apply in a click and undo with ⌘Z. It is not an AI model | The flowss Studio Agent: prompt and quick help |
| Diagram Intelligence | The Studio panel (⇧⌘X) that analyses the structure of the open diagram | Data, timeline, TikZ and the diagram tools |
Sharing, people and live work
| Term | Meaning | More |
|---|---|---|
| Share link, permalink | A link that carries the compressed diagram source inside the address itself, created with Share → Copy link. Anyone with the link can read the diagram, so treat it as public. Opening one requires signing in. It holds about 8 KB (8,000 characters of link), and it is a copy of the diagram at the moment you copied it | Sharing and permissions |
| Project link | One link that carries every figure in your Studio workspace (Copy project link, shown when you have more than one figure) | Sharing and permissions |
| Embed | An iframe or Markdown snippet that displays a live diagram on another page (Share → Embed…), or the embed script for documentation sites | Embedding and the render API |
| Live session | Editing a document with other people in real time, started from Share → Start live session. It copies a link that edits with you. Hosting starts on Plus (up to 3 people); Ultra removes the cap. Guests can join on any plan | Live collaboration |
| Live link | The invite link for a running live session (Copy live link), as opposed to a share link, which is a static copy | Live collaboration |
| One pen at a time | In the Studio, Lab and BPMN live sessions, one person edits at a time while everyone else watches the changes arrive. Weave, Science and Sketch let everyone edit at once, with live cursors. Evidence, Figure and Study have no public live session | Live collaboration |
| Voice, screen share | Talking and sharing your screen inside a live session. Voice is peer-to-peer (beta), connects up to 8 people, and may not connect on very restrictive networks. Part of Ultra | Live collaboration |
| Comments | Threaded comments pinned to a document or a canvas element, opened with Comments at the top right. They start on Plus | Comments and review |
| Project roles | What an invited person may do in a shared project: Editor, Commenter or Viewer. A join link is created at the role you choose | Sharing and permissions |
| Team | A group of people who share projects and component libraries. Teams are created from Plus | Teams and organisations |
| Team roles | Owner (who created the team; can change other members' roles, and the owner's own role cannot be lowered), Admin (can invite people as Member or Admin, and remove members and other admins, but not owners) and Member. On a team project, everyone on the team can view it, and owners and admins can edit it | Teams and organisations |
| Workspace component library | Reusable components shared across a whole team. Part of Ultra; your personal library stays available on every plan | Teams and organisations |
| Classroom | The teaching space at /cohorts | Classrooms, cohorts and assignments |
| Cohort | A class in the Classroom. Whoever starts it is the instructor, and people who join with its join code are students | Classrooms, cohorts and assignments |
| Assignment | A task posted to a cohort, with instructions and a starter diagram | Classrooms, cohorts and assignments |
| Submission | A student's work on an assignment, saved as a draft or submitted. An instructor can add a grade and feedback, and a grade makes the work final until the grade is cleared | Classrooms, cohorts and assignments |
Getting work out and building on flowss
| Term | Meaning | More |
|---|---|---|
| Export | Saving a document in another format: PNG (at 1×, 2× or 3× scale, 3× by default, optionally with a transparent background), SVG, PDF, all figures as one PDF, or the source itself, on every plan; TikZ / LaTeX through AI. Studios add their own formats, such as BPMN 2.0 XML, Figure's and the Lab's submission bundles, and Evidence's reports | Exporting your work |
| Multi-figure PDF | Export every figure as one PDF, which bundles every figure in your Studio workspace | Exporting your work |
| TikZ / LaTeX | Export to LaTeX source for papers (⌘L). It is an AI conversion, so it needs your own key on Starter or points on Plus and up | Data, timeline, TikZ and the diagram tools |
| API key | A flowss key, created on your account page under API keys, for calling the render API from scripts and CI and for the metered MCP tools | The REST API |
| Render API | An HTTP endpoint that turns source into an image without a browser, for engines that can be drawn on the server | Embedding and the render API |
| MCP server | A Model Context Protocol endpoint that lets AI clients and other software list engines, search templates, detect, verify, critique, convert and render diagrams. Catalogue and checking tools need no key; generating and rendering need a flowss API key | The flowss MCP server |
| Living diagram, binding | A diagram bound, on the Live board at /live, to a public GitHub repository, compose file, SQL schema or OpenAPI specification. flowss checks it for drift on demand, on a schedule and in CI | Integrations and extensions |
| Drift | When the reality a living diagram is bound to has changed and the picture no longer matches. A binding shows as In sync, Drift, Error, Working… while it checks (the Library calls this Syncing) or Tracking (the source is watched but the diagram has not been structurally verified against it) | Integrations and extensions |
Learning
| Term | Meaning | More |
|---|---|---|
| Academy | The hands-on course at /learn: Foundations, Studios (Core, Practitioner and Expert levels) and Mastery capstones in a stamped practice sandbox, each step checking your work, with server-verified exams and certificates. A new account lands here first, unless it signed up on the way to somewhere specific | Learn tracks |
| Track | One Academy course: a Foundations track (workspace and ⌘K, Library, moving work, sharing, AI, account, Teams & Classroom), a studio track (Studio, Sketch, Weave, BPMN, Lab, Science, Figure, Evidence or Study) or a Mastery capstone | Learn tracks |
| Course | A diagram-first unit of study in the Study studio, with lessons and a tutor | Study |
| Knowledge map | A diagram of a subject's concepts that you rebuild from memory to practise | Study |
| Spaced retrieval | Reviewing material on a schedule that spaces reviews out as you remember better | Study |
| Scholar | Study's planner at /scholar. Give it your exam date and available minutes, and it plans backwards through the prerequisites, schedules reviews and forecasts your readiness on the day | Study |
Studio-specific words
Lab and FlowScript
FlowScript is the Lab's typed research language. Every element has a domain type, and numbers propagate between elements so the arithmetic checks itself. In this excerpt, the Lab checks that each cohort's count equals its parent's count minus its exclusions: 1502 − 198 − 64 = 1240, and 1240 − 40 = 1200. Change any number so the arithmetic breaks and the Lab reports exactly which cohort no longer follows from its parent:
cohort screened {
n: 1502
}
cohort eligible {
n: 1240
from: screened
excluded: {
ineligible: 198
declined: 64
}
}
cohort randomised {
n: 1200
from: eligible
excluded: {
withdrew: 40
}
}
view flow: consort(screened)| Term | Meaning | More |
|---|---|---|
| FlowScript | The typed, composable research language of the Lab. Its many types include study, cohort, arm, outcome, project, milestone, task, service, kpi, experiment, dataset, threat and failure_mode | The FlowScript language |
| Domain type | The kind of thing a FlowScript element is (for example cohort or arm), which decides which checks apply to it | The FlowScript language |
| View | One way of rendering a FlowScript model, declared in the source, for example a CONSORT flow. One model can have several views | Lab views and renderers |
| Reporting standard | A published checklist, such as CONSORT or PRISMA, that the Lab checks a document against | Reporting standards |
| Submission bundle | The Lab's packaged publication output, including its preflight report | Publishing, provenance and compliance in Lab |
Evidence
| Term | Meaning | More |
|---|---|---|
| Investigation | An Evidence project: a research question and its papers | Evidence |
| Screening | Deciding which papers are in or out | Screening, extraction and synthesis |
| Extraction | Pulling claims and numbers out of the papers you include | Screening, extraction and synthesis |
| Grounding gate | The rule that a claim must quote its source before it reaches the synthesis; a quote that is not in the source text is rejected | Screening, extraction and synthesis |
| Synthesis | Combining evidence: random-effects meta-analysis, publication-bias checks and GRADE-ready summary-of-findings tables | Screening, extraction and synthesis |
| Evidence scaffold | What Evidence builds when you hand it any diagram with Research it: the diagram's concepts and relations, ready to research | Evidence |
Figure, Science, BPMN, Weave and Sketch
| Term | Meaning | More |
|---|---|---|
| Sheet (Figure) | Your rows of data inside the Figure studio | Figure |
| Panel (Figure) | One chart within a multi-panel figure, labelled with a panel letter | Figure |
| Journal preset (Figure) | A journal's real figure rules: column widths, type-size floors, panel-letter style. Presets include Nature, Science (AAAS), Cell Press, PNAS, Elsevier, IEEE, PLOS, Springer and Generic | Figure |
| Icon canvas (Science) | The Science studio's drawing surface of scientific icons and connections | Science |
| Checker (Science) | A deterministic check over a figure's text: equation balance, units, physical constants, identifiers (DOI, CAS, PDB) and species names | Science |
| BPMN 2.0 | The standard notation for business processes. The BPMN studio is a full modeller for it | BPMN |
| Simulation (BPMN) | Running tokens through a process model to measure cycle times and find bottlenecks | BPMN |
| Process mining (BPMN) | Discovering a process model from a CSV event log | BPMN |
| Node, edge, connector (Weave) | A shape, the line between two shapes, and the attachment point that keeps a line joined to its shape | Weave |
| Frame (Sketch) | A region of a board that can be presented as a slide in presentation mode (Starter and up) | Sketch |
| Wireframe preset (Sketch) | A ready-made interface element such as a browser window, form or modal. There are 111; Free includes a 12-piece starter set (browser, mobile, navbar, sidebar, button, input, form, card, image, table, modal and login) | Sketch |
| Ink (Sketch) | Freehand strokes, which conversion turns into diagram code. A clean drawing converts to Mermaid, Graphviz, D2, PlantUML or DBML without AI; a drawing the direct reader cannot fully read, or another target engine, needs AI. On Free the targets are Auto-detect, Mermaid, Weave, D2 and Graphviz | Sketch |
Plans and account
| Term | Meaning | More |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0. The Studio and the Sketch canvas, every engine that opens on the Studio canvas and every template written for them, PNG/SVG/PDF export, 3 saved figures per studio and 3 cloud projects, no AI, solo | Plans and what they include |
| Starter | $15 a month, or $12 a month billed annually ($144 a year). All nine studios, unlimited saved work, your own AI key (no hosted points), TikZ export on your key, the Sketch pro kit, priority email support, single-player | Plans and what they include |
| Plus | $29 a month, or $25 a month billed annually ($300 a year). Adds 200 AI points a month, top-up packs, teams with roles, shared cloud projects, live sessions for up to 3 people, and comments | Plans and what they include |
| Ultra | $59 a month, or $49 a month billed annually ($588 a year). 600 AI points a month, unlimited live sessions, voice and screen sharing, shared workspace component libraries, priority support | Plans and what they include |
| Enterprise | Custom pricing with a named customer success manager. Identity, audit, residency and tenancy features are planned for general availability | Plans and what they include |
| Waitlist | When a paid plan cannot be bought on the site yet, its button reads "Join the … waitlist". Joining is free, and you are emailed when the plan opens | Managing your subscription |
| Account page | /account: your plan, AI points, your own AI key, API keys, billing and data export | Account settings and your data |
Interface words
| Term | Meaning | More |
|---|---|---|
| Island | A small floating panel over the canvas. Studios place them in the same five places: identity and file at the top left, people and Share at the top right, tools on the left edge, the AI prompt at the bottom centre, and view controls at the bottom right | A tour of the workspace |
| App button (Studio ▾) | The top-left menu with Search & commands (⌘K), Home, Studios, Library, Flow (⌘J), Keyboard shortcuts (?), Theme (Light, Dark, System), Layout (Modern, Classic) and Help & docs | A tour of the workspace |
| ⋮ menu, file menu | Every document command, in the same order in every studio: New and Open, Templates, Import, Export, Send to, Version history, the document's own commands (in the Studio, Convert and Settings), and finally Delete | A tour of the workspace |
| Rail | The column of tool buttons on the left edge; items that do not fit (in the Studio, anything past the sixth) fold into More tools | A tour of the workspace |
| Sheet | A panel that opens beside the rail, such as the Studio's code sheet | The Studio editor |
| Drawer, inspector | A panel on the right that holds one thing at a time, such as the flowss Studio Agent pane, Collaborate, Comments, Diagram Intelligence or the timeline. ⌘. opens the inspector in studios that have one | A tour of the workspace |
| Modern and Classic layouts | Modern floats the islands over a full-screen canvas. Classic docks them as bars and columns, on windows at least 1,024 pixels wide. Switch under Studio ▾ → Layout | A tour of the workspace |
| Hide interface | ⌥Z hides the islands so you can look at the work; a small Show interface button stays beside the view controls. ⌥Z, Escape or that button brings them back. On a touch screen, hold two fingers still on the canvas | Keyboard shortcuts |
| Present | Full-screen presentation of the canvas (P in the Studio) | Keyboard shortcuts |
| Cheat sheet | The keyboard-shortcut overlay opened with ?, listing exactly the shortcuts live on the current screen | Keyboard shortcuts |
| F6 | Moves keyboard focus between regions (identity, people, rail, sheet, drawer, prompt, view, canvas). Shift+F6 moves backwards. In Sketch, F6 opens the Outline instead | Keyboard shortcuts |
| Welcome tour | The six-card introduction in the Studio. Reopen it from the account menu or with ⌘K, "Open onboarding tour" | Quickstart |
| Personalisation | The optional name and role from the welcome tour, stored only in this browser. It is used to rank ⌘K results, suggest starter templates and tint the interface. Change or erase it in Settings under Personalization & privacy | Account settings and your data |
Tips
- When a message uses a word you don't recognise, search this page for it. Every term above is spelled exactly as it appears on screen.
- "Studio" with a capital S always means the universal canvas at /studio. "A studio" in lower case means any of the nine.
- Readiness and critique never stop you exporting. Only verification is required, and only because a document that does not parse cannot be drawn.
- A share link is a copy and a live link is a session. If you want someone to see later edits, invite them to the project or a live session rather than sending another share link.
Limits and known constraints
- The document cap on Free is per studio (3 documents in each studio's list) plus 3 cloud projects. It is not one global total.
- A Figure document opens only in Figure; it cannot be handed to another studio.
- The Vault holds up to 40 checkpoints, and a single very large document may be too large to checkpoint.
- Live presence, voice and person-to-person handoffs inside private projects are temporarily paused. Public live sessions, saved project changes, permissions and comments keep working.
- Enterprise identity, audit, residency and tenancy features are not available yet.
Troubleshooting
| Confusion | Explanation |
|---|---|
| "My BPMN model says Checked, not Sound" | In BPMN, the level called Sound elsewhere is shown as Checked, because BPMN's own soundness is a separate, stricter verdict reported on its own |
| "My diagram is Sound but never Reviewed" | Reviewed needs an overall critique score of at least 70% with no dimension under 60%. Open the status popover and act on the lowest dimension's findings |
| "My exports say Example data — not real" | The document still contains example content shipped with the platform. Replace it with your own; in the Lab, also delete the example notice line |
| "I sent a link and they can't see my newer edits" | A share link is a static copy of the diagram at the moment you copied it. Copy a fresh link, or invite them to the project or a live session |
| "My Figure work isn't in the Library" | Each figure is copied to the Library after it saves. If browser storage is nearly full, that copy is refused and reported, and the figure stays safe in Figure; free up storage from the Library's storage panel |
| "The vault is full — nothing was removed to make room, so this copy was not saved." | An automatic copy (for example, one kept after a sync conflict) needed room it is not allowed to make by removing your own checkpoints. Delete a checkpoint you no longer need, then try again |
| "This document is too large to checkpoint — export it, or remove a pasted image and try again." | The document exceeds the Vault's per-document size; export it instead |
| "This studio keeps its own library, so there is nothing here to checkpoint." | The Studio, Study and Evidence keep their work elsewhere; use the Library or the studio's own version history |