The template gallery

The template gallery at /templates is the public home of flowss's template catalogue: 5,012 ready-made diagrams across 110 engines and 17 categories, from RAG pipelines and AWS architectures to PRISMA flows, Kaplan–Meier curves, phylogenies and BPMN processes. Anyone can browse it, search it, read every template's source and copy it, with no account. When you find the one you want, a single click opens it in the studio built for it. This page explains how the gallery and each template's own page work, control by control, what happens when you open a template, what the catalogue contains, and what to do when something does not go as expected. For loading templates from inside the Studio itself, see Starting from a template.

At a glance

Opening the gallery

Go to /templates. You can also get there from:

• Browse templates in the ⌘K command palette (Ctrl+K on Windows and Linux), described as "All 5,012 templates".
• The All N → link beside Sample templates on any engine's reference page under /docs/engines, which opens the gallery filtered to that engine.
• Browse 5,012 templates and Explore the collection on the use cases page.
• The back link at the top of any template's page.

The page opens with a header, The template collection, under the title "A brilliant place to begin." It shows the size of the catalogue (5,012 templates and 110 engines) and a Find your template button that scrolls down to the collection. Above the collection a short note headed Find the shape of your idea. sums up the rules: "Copy every template's source without an account, and preview most of them. Studio templates open on a free account; BPMN, Weave, Lab templates open on Starter. Your filters create a shareable link."

Finding a template

The gallery has a search box across the top, two filter lists on the left (Engine and Category), and the results on the right. On a narrow screen the filters sit above the results.

Searching

Type in the search box (its placeholder suggests "Try "RAG", "swot", "kaplan-meier", "kubernetes", "antibody"…"). Results update as you type; × (Clear search) empties the box. The search covers the whole catalogue and follows these rules:

Because engine and category names are searched, typing an engine's name ("cytoscape", "wardley", "plantuml") or a category ("life sciences") finds its templates too.

Filtering by engine and category

Select one engine and one category at a time; selecting All engines or All categories removes that filter. Filters combine with the search: the search ranks the whole catalogue and the filters narrow the ranked list. The counts beside each entry are the catalogue totals, not the number left after your search.

The results line and paging

Above the cards, a line reads "N results" (or "1 result"). While any search or filter is active, Clear filters resets all three at once. If nothing matches, the gallery says "No templates match. Try different keywords or clear a filter."

Results come 48 to a page. When there is more than one page, a pager under the cards shows Previous page, "Page X of Y" and Next page, with "Showing 49–96 of 812." (for example) beneath. Changing page brings you back to the top of the results. Changing the search or a filter returns you to page 1.

Sharing a filtered view

The gallery writes your search and filters into the address as you work, without reloading the page:

Combine them freely, for example /templates?category=research&q=prisma. Copy the address to bookmark a view or send it to someone. An unknown engine or category in a link is ignored rather than causing an error. The page you are on is not part of the link; it always opens on page 1.

The category ids are uml, flow, data, architecture, project, research, science, math, bio, chem, geo, business, operations, ai, lean, risk and custom (see What's in the catalogue for their names). Engine ids are listed on each engine's reference page under /docs/engines.

Reading a card

Each card shows:

Thumbnails load as you scroll. While a thumbnail is being drawn the card shimmers. What you then see depends on the engine:

A template's page

Every template has its own page at /templates/<template id>, reached by selecting a card or its title. Search engines index these pages, so a link to one is a stable way to point someone at a template.

The preview

The preview is drawn by the same renderers the studios use:

• Most engines are drawn before the page reaches you, so the picture is there straight away.
• Mermaid, PlantUML, Vega-Lite, Vega, Plotly, Graphviz, D2, raw SVG, LaTeX (KaTeX), Markmap, Nomnoml, Pikchr, SVGBob and 3D molecules are drawn in your browser; "Rendering…" shows briefly while they load.
• Some engines can only be drawn in their own studio: Weave, Cytoscape (Network), BPMN 2.0, Structurizr DSL, Bytefield, Network (nwdiag), Packet diagrams (packetdiag), ERD, Ditaa (ASCII), Excalidraw, WireViz, Symbolator (HDL) and Floor plan (3D WebGL). For these the frame says "… renders in the full studio" and explains that the engine "needs a heavier renderer than this preview embeds". Use Open in … to see it drawn, or read the source below.

This is why the gallery says you can preview most templates: the source is always shown in full, whatever the engine.

Copying the source

Copy source puts the whole template on your clipboard; the button reads Copied for a couple of seconds. If your browser refuses clipboard access, it reads "Couldn't copy — select it below": select the source in the box underneath and copy it by hand. Copying never needs an account, and the source works anywhere the engine does: paste it into the Studio's code sheet, a Markdown file that renders Mermaid, or the engine's own tools.

More ways to start

The six related templates are the ones that follow this template in the catalogue, taken alternately from the same engine and the same category, wrapping round at the end. Templates are written a topic at a time, so neighbours tend to be closely related; following these links from page to page walks through every template of an engine and of a category.

Opening a template in a studio

Open in … opens the template in the studio that owns its engine, ready to edit and export.

Two hand-written FlowScript starters that are not Lab templates open in the Studio instead of the Lab, so that the template actually loads.

Step by step

1. Select Open in … on a card or on the template's page.
2. If you are not signed in, the sign-in page opens. After signing in (or creating an account) you are taken straight back and the template opens.
3. If your plan does not include that studio, you land on the pricing page with a note such as "Weave is part of Starter", which explains that the Studio and the Sketch canvas stay free and that Starter opens every workstation. If Starter cannot be bought yet, the note says joining the waitlist costs nothing and holds your place.
4. Otherwise the studio opens with the template loaded as described in the table. The template id is removed from the address once it has loaded, so reloading the page does not open a second copy.

You can build the same links yourself from a template's id (shown on its page under Template id):

On the Free plan

The Studio keeps up to 3 figures on a Free account. Opening a template adds a new figure, so with three already saved the Studio opens your existing work instead and shows: "That template wasn't added, because it would be a new figure. Free accounts keep 3 figures in a studio, and this one is full. Every figure here stays open and fully editable — nothing has been archived or deleted. Delete one to make room, or upgrade to Starter for unlimited figures." To use the template anyway, copy its source from its page and paste it into one of your existing figures, or load it from the Studio's own template library, which replaces the open figure rather than adding one (see Starting from a template).

What's in the catalogue

Categories

The 17 categories, in the order the gallery lists them (largest first), with the number of templates in each at the time of writing:

Engines

Every one of the 110 engines has at least one template. The ten with the most, at the time of writing:

By destination, 4,650 templates open in the Studio, 267 in Weave, 60 in the Lab and 35 in BPMN. The Engine filter in the gallery lists every engine with its live count. To learn an engine's syntax before adapting one of its templates, open its reference page from the template's … syntax docs tag or from /docs/engines; for help choosing between engines, see Choosing an engine and the engine reference pages for software, business, process and operations, charts and maths and science.

Starting points inside each studio

The gallery holds the catalogue that the Studio, Weave, the Lab and BPMN draw on. Several studios also have starting points of their own that are not in the gallery:

Many of the gallery's science templates (titles beginning "Biology —", "Chemistry —" or "Physics —") are written for the Studio's science engines, so they open in the Studio rather than in Science Studio.

Making a template your own

1. Open the template with Open in …, or copy its source and paste it into a figure you already have.
2. Rename the figure or document so you can find it again.
3. Replace the example labels and values with your own. Templates contain illustrative data: before you publish a research figure, check every number against your own.
4. Restyle, convert to another engine, or send the work to another studio as you need (see Styling, themes and layout and Moving work between studios).
5. Export, share or embed it (see Exporting your work).

Tips

• Search for what you are drawing rather than for an engine: "swimlane", "fault tree", "kaplan meier", "rag pipeline". The gallery searches every engine at once.
• Narrow a broad search with a category ("prisma" in Research & Academic), then send the address to a colleague.
• If a card has only an engine badge, open its page: the full preview is drawn there.
• Copying the source is the quickest way to bring a template into a figure you already have, and it does not use one of your Free figure slots.
• Use the template id to build a link that opens a template directly, for a course handout, a README or a team wiki.
• Follow More ways to start to browse an engine or category one neighbour at a time.
• Set your role in Studio Settings → Personalization & privacy so ⌘K suggests templates for your field (see Starting from a template).

Limits and known constraints

• One engine and one category can be selected at a time.
• The counts beside the filters are catalogue totals; they do not shrink as you search.
• The page you are on is not saved in the address, so a shared link opens on page 1.
• Thumbnails are drawn only for engines flowss can draw directly; other cards show an engine badge.
• Thirteen engines cannot be previewed on a template's page and must be opened in their studio to be seen drawn (listed under The preview).
• Opening a template needs a signed-in account; Weave, Lab and BPMN templates need Starter or above. Reading and copying the source never does.
• On the Free plan, opening a Studio template needs a free figure slot (3 per studio).
• A template's page that has not been opened recently may take a moment longer to load the first time.
• Templates contain example values. They are starting points, not authoritative data.
• The catalogue grows over time, so the counts on this page may differ from what the gallery shows; the gallery is always current.

Troubleshooting

Related pages

• Starting from a template
• Choosing an engine
• Engine reference
• The Studio editor
• Weave
• Lab
• BPMN
• Science
• Sketch
• Use cases by role
• Exporting your work
• Moving work between studios
• Plans and what they include
• Learn tracks