Setup
Flow Code runs as a VS Code sidebar backed by an out-of-process core. This page covers opening the sidebar, the sidecar it spawns, the data directory it shares with the desktop edition, and selecting a model.
Open the sidebar
Section titled “Open the sidebar”Open the Flow Code view from the activity bar and describe a workflow in plain language. The plan and the live per-step status render in the sidebar. The run is pinned to the folder open in the VS Code window.
The sidecar
Section titled “The sidecar”The orchestration core runs out-of-process as a JSON-RPC sidecar
(flow-host-rpc). The extension spawns the sidecar on first use. You do not need
to start a separate service.
Shared data directory
Section titled “Shared data directory”Flow Code shares the same data directory as the desktop edition. It is
~/.flow-studio by default, and you can override it with FLOW_STUDIO_DIR. The
directory holds templates, models, settings, history, and OS-keyring secrets.
Because the directory is shared, only one of the two should run at a time. The
sidecar holds a single-instance lock on the data directory and does not start
while the desktop application holds it. The reverse case is recorded in the logs.
Selecting a model
Section titled “Selecting a model”Flow Code uses the same local models and providers as the other editions. You download and load local models through the Model Hub, and the managed local runtime serves them. Opt-in cloud providers are also available. Local inference is zero-egress by default.