Use the Flow desktop service for connected capabilities

The Flow desktop service connects your local Maya Animate in context capability to Flow Production Tracking. On Windows and Linux, it's installed automatically with Maya 2026, and is available from the task tray by clicking the Flow desktop service icon .

With this application you can do the following:

• View server logs
• Edit the configuration files
• Restart the Data Server and UI Server
• Manage the local data cache
• Close or Quit the application

View Logs

The Flow desktop service manages two local servers:

• Data Server: connects to the Flow desktop service, and exposes a GraphQL server at localhost:3333.
• UI Server: offers a web-based interface for Animate in context, and serves at localhost:4300.

Each server maintains a log with status information, including the running URL and port, and any errors the server may have encountered. Click View Logs to view detailed information on these local servers.

Edit the Configuration File

There are two configuration files that Flow uses:

• System Config: This is the default configuration file that requires administrator permissions to change. Each variable is documented within the config itself, to give you an idea of what they do.
• User Config: This is a configuration file that overrides settings in the System Config file. To use it, copy settings from the System Config here and change their values. This is the preferred place to make configuration changes. For example, you can copy and paste the variable BLOB_STORAGE_ROOT_DIRECTORY from the System Config to the User Config, then change its value to customize where downloaded media is stored.

If you edit either config, you must click the reload button to restart both servers and for the changes to take effect.

Manage the Local Data cache

The Flow desktop service stores data locally in the location specified by the BLOB_STORAGE_ROOT_DIRECTORY setting in the System Config (or User Config if overridden there). The Cache section of the Flow desktop service UI will display the size of the local data. You can perform the following operations:

• Reload the cache by clicking the reload button.
• Delete the cache by clicking the trash/delete button.
  Warning:

  This may affect performance

• Open the directory containing the cache by clicking the folder button.

Close or Quit Flow desktop service

To close the Flow desktop service window, click the close button in the upper right-hand corner of the UI. This will keep the service active in the task tray.

To quit the service and shut down both servers, click Quit Flow desktop service in the Settings. This will disable the Animate in context capability.

If you want to start the service anew, click the Flow desktop service application icon. You can find this in your OS's respective app list. Be careful not to run multiple instances of the Flow desktop service this way, as that can cause unexpected behavior.