Reliability, status and support

This page explains what you can rely on flowss for and what you should not: the service commitments flowss does and does not make, how to read the public status page (everyone sees how many checks are degraded; only an administrator sees which) and its machine-readable twin, what keeps working when your connection drops, how app updates arrive, how backups work and why your own exports still matter, every service limit and outage message you are likely to meet, and how to get help from a person — with what to include so the answer comes quickly. For how your account and data are protected, see Security at flowss and Privacy and your data.

At a glance

What flowss commits to, and what it does not

flowss is built and run by a small team, and the commitments are deliberately modest so they can be kept.

Note: flowss also depends on other companies — payments, the database and sign-in, AI providers, and the outside render services some engines use. An outage at one of them can affect flowss even when flowss itself is running.

The status page

/status is public and needs no account. Its headline is "Counted, not claimed.": the inventory numbers are counted from the product as deployed, and the health badge is evaluated each time you load the page.

The health badge

Open What this health check measures under the badge for the exact wording. The important part: the badge is not an outage detector — in the page's words, "the database, billing and AI providers are not checked by this badge, so their being down does not turn it amber." The email-failure half is also best-effort, because the server that answers you may not be the one that saw a failure. No live connectivity test runs when you load the page. The amber count includes every failing check, even those whose details are withheld. A line such as "build 1a2b3c4" under the badge names the release that is running, which is useful to quote in a bug report.

Inventory tiles

Five tiles count what is deployed, straight from the product's own registries: Surfaces, Engines, Templates, Categories and Native renderers. They answer "has the thing I need actually shipped?" rather than "is it working right now?".

Services

A card for each optional service, marked configured or not configured:

"Configured" means the service's keys are present, not that the provider is answering right now.

Speed, as visitors measured it

This section summarises Core Web Vitals reported anonymously by real page loads over the last 7 days (no IP addresses, no page addresses, and Do-Not-Track is honoured). The figures are recalculated at most every five minutes, so a reload within that time usually shows the same numbers.

Each card shows the 75th-percentile value (the number the web is judged on), the median and the number of loads, rated good, needs improvement or poor (poor starts above 4 s LCP, 500 ms INP, 0.25 CLS and 1.8 s TTFB). A table below breaks LCP, INP and CLS down by workstation. In the page's words, "A vital is only recorded once a page is hidden, so today's loads arrive later today." A measure is shown only once at least 20 real page loads have reported it; until any measure qualifies, the section reads "Collecting." rather than showing an estimate.

Surfaces and engine coverage

The rest of the page lists the main public surfaces — Landing, Studio, Evidence, Weave, Science, BPMN, Sketch, Study, Templates, Docs, Use cases, Embed, Blog, Pricing and Attributions — each marked live and linked, and a table of every engine with its id and how many templates use it, sorted by template count. The footer offers "Heard something feels off? Email" with a link that opens an email to hello@flowss.ai with the subject "Something looks wrong".

Machine-readable health

If you run your own monitoring, the status page's check is also served as JSON at /api/health. It is free, needs no sign-in, runs no connectivity checks, is never cached (Cache-Control: no-store) and always answers HTTP 200 while the service is up — the verdict is in the body, not the status code.

Deeper connectivity checks and the names of failing checks are available only to flowss operators.

Working offline and receiving updates

flowss can be installed as an app from /install, and keeps working through a dropped connection in the tab you already have open.

Studio pages are never stored for offline use, because each needs your signed-in session. Export important local work before closing a tab while offline. The details are in Cloud sync, offline work and devices.

When a new version is ready

When flowss is updated while you are working, a card titled A fresh version is ready appears at the bottom right: "Finish your work, then update when you’re ready. This window stays open until you choose."

1. Finish or export what you are doing.
2. Choose Update & reload. A confirmation asks: "Save or export any unfinished work in your open flowss windows first. Update and reload this window now?"
3. Confirm. The window reloads on the new version.

Choose Later (or the close button, "Remind me later") to keep working; a small Update available button stays in the corner until you are ready, and choosing it brings the card back. The card and the button appear only while you are online. While the update applies, the button reads "Updating…". If the update takes more than about 15 seconds you see "The update is taking longer than expected. Your current work remains open; try again when ready."

On /install, Check for updates checks on demand ("Checking…") and reports "Update available — save your work before reloading.", "You’re using the latest available app version." or "Couldn’t check. Reconnect and try again." The same line otherwise reads "App support is active in this browser.", "Preparing app support…" or, when this browser window cannot run app support, "Use a normal, secure browser window to enable app support." Check for updates is available only once app support is active.

Backups and keeping your own copy

Every diagram exports from its studio as SVG, PNG, PDF, TikZ and JSON source, and the JSON round-trips back in. Account → Your data → Download my data downloads everything flowss holds about you as one file. For important work, keep both. See Exporting your work, Version history and undo and Privacy and your data.

Service limits and outage messages

Daily limits reset at midnight UTC. In the messages below, N stands for the number the message shows — your current cap — plan for your plan's name, and code for a status number. Higher plans raise the caps for hosted AI, server-side exports, TikZ conversion, PlantUML and Kroki rendering, and Evidence literature search. AI points are covered in AI points and limits.

When something goes wrong in the app

Crash reports are recorded automatically so the team can fix them; you do not need to report every one, but a report with steps is what gets a recurring problem fixed fastest.

Getting help

The help page

/support answers common questions from reviewed flowss documentation. "This help selector cannot see your account, change your work or manage payments."

1. Choose a topic under What can we help with?: Create your first diagram, Save and find your work, Export a diagram, Sign-in and confirmation help, Billing and cancellation, AI access and limits, Privacy and account data or Something is not working.
2. Or type into Or describe what you need (up to 500 characters — "Keep it general. Do not include passwords, API keys, payment details or private project content.") and choose Find help. The match is made in your browser.
3. Optionally tick "Use the flowss Support Agent to select a help topic. I agree to send this question to Anthropic when I choose Find help." This needs you to be signed in; the flowss Support Agent only picks a topic, and flowss does not save the question. When it is off, the page says "The flowss Support Agent is currently off. Topic matching runs in your browser and does not send your question to a model."
4. Read the answer, labelled "Documentation topic" or "Selected by the flowss Support Agent", and choose Read the source for the full page.
5. If nothing fits, choose Contact a person. "Your question is not forwarded automatically."

To use your voice, tick "Enable local voice for this visit". Dictate question listens for up to 30 seconds using your device's own English speech recognition ("Microphone on. Listening locally…"); choose Stop dictation to finish early, then review the transcript before choosing Find help. Read answer aloud reads the answer with a local voice (Stop reading ends it). Voice stops when you switch to another tab. Clear resets everything.

Questions that look like they contain a password, key, card number or email address, that mention a security problem, or that ask for a person (words such as "human", "person" or "agent") are never sent to the AI; the page says "This question is better handled privately by a person. Nothing was sent to the AI provider." and points you to Contact a person.

Sending a private support request

The form on the contact page, Send a private support request, keeps a reference you can track. You need to be signed in with a confirmed email address; if you cannot sign in, email instead.

1. Choose a Topic: Product, Bug, Billing, Privacy, Security or Other.
2. Enter a Subject (5 to 160 characters).
3. Describe What happened? (20 to 6,000 characters): the page, the steps, and what you expected.
4. Tick "I have reviewed this message and want to send it to the flowss support team."
5. Choose Send to a person.

You see "Saved as FS-…" with a reference, and either "A receipt has been sent to your account email." or "Email notifications are pending; your request is saved for human review." Your recent requests lists up to 20 requests with their status — open, in progress, waiting on customer or resolved — and date. Keep the reference and reply to the receipt email to follow up. Requests are visible to you and to flowss administrators.

Emailing support

Everything goes to one monitored address, hello@flowss.ai. The contact page's subject cards open an email with the right subject already filled in, which gets it to the right place faster:

What to expect

• A person reads every message. Replies come in the team's working hours rather than instantly; no response time is quoted.
• Where your plan includes priority support — priority email support from Starter upwards, and a named customer success manager on Enterprise — it uses the same address, prioritised. See Plans and what they include.
• Bug reports always get an answer, even when it is "confirmed, it's on the list".
• Writing to support does not add you to a mailing list.
• Never send a password, an API key, a one-time code or a sign-in link to support. flowss's own sign-in emails say "We will never ask you for your password or for this link."

Writing a bug report that gets fixed fast

1. Name the studio and page, and the approximate time it happened (with your time zone).
2. List the steps that cause it, starting from a fresh page if you can.
3. Say what you expected and what happened instead, quoting any message word for word.
4. Add the "digest" line from an error box, and the build identifier from /status, if you have them.
5. Include your browser and operating system.
6. Attach a minimal, redacted example only if needed — never confidential project content, passwords or keys.

Feedback from inside the app

For quick suggestions, open the Flow Dock (⌘J), choose Feedback at the bottom, type up to 2,000 characters in "Something missing? Something broken? Tell us —" and choose Send feedback. You see "Thank you — feedback received." Signed-in feedback carries your account so the team can reply; it is not a support ticket and has no reference. Use the support form for anything you need answered.

Staying informed

The blog carries release notes and engineering write-ups. Material changes to the terms or the privacy policy are announced at least 14 days before they take effect. The status page's tiles show what has shipped as of the build you are using.

Tips

• Bookmark /status, but remember the green badge checks configuration, not live availability.
• If one engine fails to render while others work, the outside render service may be down; an engine that draws locally will keep working.
• Before clearing browser data, switching devices or closing a tab offline, check the sync status and export anything important.
• Apply app updates when you are at a natural stopping point; the update card waits for you.
• Use the support form rather than plain email when you want a reference and a visible status.
• When a limit message names a number, that is your plan's cap for today; it resets at midnight UTC.

Limits and known constraints

• No uptime commitment, SLA or guaranteed response time.
• The status badge does not detect outages of the database, billing or AI providers, and no live connectivity test runs on the public page.
• No point-in-time recovery; deleted accounts and individual documents are not restored from backups.
• Opening a studio needs a connection; studio pages are not available offline.
• The support form needs a signed-in account with a confirmed email; otherwise use email.
• AI topic matching on the help page needs you to be signed in and only selects a help topic.
• Local voice on the help page works only in browsers with English speech support already installed, and has no remote fallback.

Troubleshooting

Related pages

• Security at flowss
• Privacy and your data
• Troubleshooting and FAQ
• Cloud sync, offline work and devices
• Version history and undo
• Exporting your work
• AI points and limits
• Plans and what they include
• Managing your subscription
• Creating an account and signing in