Installation

Flowline runs on Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit. There is no Mac or Linux installer. After setup, tracking starts on its own. You do not create an account.

Option A: download the installer

1. Go to the Releases page.
2. Download the latest Flowline-<version>-setup.exe (for example Flowline-0.1.0-setup.exe).
3. Run it. Flowline installs, adds a system-tray icon, and can start automatically on login.

Flowline is open source and unsigned during early releases, so Windows SmartScreen may show a “Windows protected your PC” prompt. Click More info → Run anyway. You can always build it yourself from source instead (below).

Option B: build from source

You’ll need Node.js and the Windows build tools for native modules.

git clone https://github.com/sanjaynishad/flowline.git
cd flowline

# Install deps and build native modules for Electron
npm run setup:win

# Run in development
npm run dev

# Build production bundles
npm run build

# Package a Windows installer (NSIS .exe)
npm run dist:win

Why setup:win instead of npm install?

Node 24 bundles a common.gypi that forces the ClangCL MSBuild toolset, which breaks a plain npm install when compiling native modules. The native modules only need building against Electron’s ABI, so setup:win runs:

npm install --ignore-scripts
node node_modules/electron/install.js
npx electron-rebuild -f

First run

On first launch Flowline seeds about 80 default categorization rules and starts tracking immediately. Open the Dashboard to watch the day build up, then add the browser extension if you want time split by domain instead of by window title.

The packaged installer also copies a browser-extension folder you can load unpacked. Source builds use the browser-extension/ directory in the repo. Details are in the extension doc. The download page lists what the installer includes and what it leaves out.