Local-Only Execution

Some flows in Flow-Like must run locally on your device through Flow-Like Studio. These flows cannot be executed on remote servers or in the cloud—they require direct access to your machine’s resources.

Why Some Flows Require Local Execution

Certain automation tasks need capabilities that only exist on your local machine:

• Direct hardware access (cameras, microphones, USB devices)
• Desktop control (mouse, keyboard, screen capture)
• Local file system access (reading/writing files on your computer)
• Browser automation (controlling a real browser window)
• Compute-intensive processing (leveraging your local GPU or CPU)

When you add a node that requires local execution to your flow, the entire board is marked as local-only. This ensures your automation runs reliably with full access to the resources it needs.

Examples of Local-Only Nodes

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

RPA nodes automate interactions with your desktop applications:

• Click – Simulate mouse clicks at specific screen coordinates
• Type – Send keystrokes to applications
• Screenshot – Capture your screen or specific windows
• Window Control – Focus, minimize, maximize, or close windows
• OCR (Optical Character Recognition) – Read text from screen regions

These nodes are essential for automating legacy applications that don’t have APIs.

Browser Automation

Control a real browser on your machine:

• Navigate – Open URLs in a controlled browser
• Click Element – Click buttons, links, or other page elements
• Fill Form – Enter text into form fields
• Extract Data – Scrape content from web pages
• Take Screenshot – Capture page screenshots

Browser automation requires a local browser instance (Chromium) that can only run on your device.

Local File Operations

Work directly with files on your computer:

• Read File – Load content from local files
• Write File – Save data to your file system
• Watch Folder – Monitor directories for changes
• Execute Program – Run local applications or scripts

Hardware Integration

Access devices connected to your machine:

• Camera Capture – Take photos or record video
• Microphone Input – Record audio
• Speaker Output – Play sounds

AI & Machine Learning

Some AI operations run best (or only) on local hardware:

• Local LLM Inference – Run language models on your GPU
• Image Processing – GPU-accelerated image operations
• Speech Recognition – On-device voice transcription

How to Identify Local-Only Flows

In Flow-Like Studio, boards containing local-only nodes are visually marked. When you run a pre-flight check on your flow, you’ll see:

• A local execution required indicator
• The specific nodes that require local execution

Running Local-Only Flows

Local-only flows can be triggered in several ways:

1. Manual execution – Click the Run button in Studio
2. Scheduled events – Set up timed triggers (your computer must be on)
3. File watchers – Automatically trigger when files change
4. Hotkeys – Assign keyboard shortcuts to start your flow

Note

For scheduled or automated local flows, Flow-Like Studio must be running on your machine. Consider enabling “Start on Login” in your system preferences.

Mixing Local and Remote Nodes

You can combine local-only nodes with standard nodes in the same flow. The entire flow will execute locally, but you can still:

• Make API calls to external services
• Store data in cloud databases
• Send notifications via email or messaging platforms

This gives you the best of both worlds—local device control with cloud connectivity.

Best Practices

1. Test locally first – Always verify your RPA and browser automation flows work correctly before scheduling them
2. Handle errors gracefully – Desktop automation can fail if windows move or UI changes; add error handling nodes
3. Use delays wisely – Some applications need time to respond; add appropriate wait nodes
4. Document your flows – Use comment nodes to explain what each RPA step does for future maintenance