Skip to main content
This guide walks you through creating a flow for a development project, activating it, stopping it with a saved note, and reading that note back.

​
Create your first flow

1

Scaffold a new flow

Run progflow new with a name for the flow. The name is how you’ll refer to this workspace configuration in all other commands.
progflow new dev
The command launches an interactive prompt. Fill in the details for your project:
Working directory: /home/you/projects/myapp
Editor command: nvim .
URLs to open (comma-separated): https://github.com/user/myapp, https://docs.rs
Shell: /bin/bash
Env vars (KEY=VALUE, comma-separated, or leave blank): NODE_ENV=development
Leave the editor command blank if you don’t want progflow to open an editor. Leave the URLs field blank to skip URL launching. All fields except the working directory are optional.
2

Activate the flow

Start the flow with progflow on:
progflow on dev
You should see output like this:
✓ flow 'dev' started — editor, 2 urls
Progflow has:
  • Spawned nvim . as a background process with its working directory set to /home/you/projects/myapp
  • Opened both URLs with xdg-open (or termux-open-url on Android)
  • Written a lockfile at ~/.config/flow/dev.lock to track the spawned PIDs
3

List your flows

To see all configured flows at any time, run:
progflow list
Example output:
dev
Each flow name appears on its own line, sorted alphabetically. If you have multiple flows, they all appear here.
4

Stop the flow and save a note

When you’re done working, stop the flow with progflow off:
progflow off dev
Progflow sends SIGTERM to any processes it spawned, then prompts you to save a context note:
Save a context note? [y/N]: y
Enter note: Debugging auth issue in JWT middleware — see src/auth.rs:42
The note is saved directly into the flow’s config file. It persists until you overwrite it the next time you stop the flow.
Press Enter without typing y to skip saving a note. The flow stops either way.
5

Read the saved note

When you come back to the project later, retrieve the note to pick up where you left off:
progflow note dev
Output:
Debugging auth issue in JWT middleware — see src/auth.rs:42

​
The resulting config file

After running progflow new dev and saving a note, the config file at ~/.config/flow/dev.json looks like this: 
{
  "name": "dev",
  "directory": "/home/you/projects/myapp",
  "editorCmd": "nvim .",
  "urlList": [
    "https://github.com/user/myapp",
    "https://docs.rs"
  ],
  "shell": "/bin/bash",
  "env": {
    "NODE_ENV": "development"
  },
  "note": "Debugging auth issue in JWT middleware — see src/auth.rs:42"
}
You can edit this file directly or use progflow edit dev to open it in your $EDITOR.

​
Next steps

Command reference

See all available commands and their options.

Flow configuration

Learn about all config fields and how to use environment variables.

Use cases

See examples for multi-service setups, documentation workflows, and more.

Termux guide

Tips for running Progflow on Android with Termux.

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Get started for freeTalk to us