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Flow Code overview

Flow Code is the VS Code edition of Flow. It runs the same Rust orchestration core as every other edition, surfaced as a native sidebar in VS Code rather than the full application in a panel. You describe a workflow in plain language. The selected model generates a Flow DSL. The orchestrator then runs the parsed graph in the open editor while the session monitors the run and repairs failures.

How it runs

Section titled “How it runs”

A turn proceeds in three stages, covered in Turn lifecycle:

  1. Generate. The model turns the prompt into a Flow DSL, which is rendered as an expandable step tree.
  2. Run. The orchestrator executes the graph, pinned to the open VS Code folder, and streams per-step status into the tree.
  3. Monitor and fix. When a failure is not handled, the session re-plans a fix. You can review that fix, or have it applied autonomously.

Workspace ownership

Section titled “Workspace ownership”

The run is pinned to the open VS Code folder, so file and shell steps operate on that repository, and each step is jailed and audited. The workspace is host-owned. The model does not set the workspace root or working directory, and the engine strips any that it emits. A run cannot be redirected outside the pinned folder.

Interface and configuration

Section titled “Interface and configuration”

The sidebar gives each tab its own model selection, a run-config popover for context size and reasoning, a context-usage ring, a flow-tab menu, and an editable run-panel DSL. See Interface and controls for the full surface.

Code intelligence

Section titled “Code intelligence”

Flow Code also indexes the open folder into a code-intelligence graph. It adds tree views for symbols and their call relationships, commands to find callers, callees, and tests, a blast-radius analysis for reviewing a change, and a graph visualization. See Code graph for the full surface.

Security posture

Section titled “Security posture”

Local inference is zero-egress by default. Cloud models are an opt-in carve-out. This is the same posture as the rest of the platform. See Zero egress and Sandboxing.

Relation to the other editions

Section titled “Relation to the other editions”

Flow Code shares the orchestration engine, node registry, and local-inference model with Flow Studio and Flow Server. The core runs out-of-process as a JSON-RPC sidecar (flow-host-rpc) and reaches the engine through the same host facade the browser edition uses. The full canvas and mono UI remain in the desktop and browser editions. The VS Code edition is the native sidebar.

Section titled “Related”