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Serve a Project

The flowdash serve command scans a project directory, discovers components and pages, and launches a Panel server with all routes configured.

Basic usage

flowdash serve my_project/

This:

  1. Adds my_project/ to sys.path
  2. Scans subdirectories for modules with @register-decorated app exports
  3. Builds the component registry and specs
  4. Creates a DashboardStore at my_project/dashboards.db
  5. Serves the app on http://0.0.0.0:5006

CLI options

flowdash serve <directory> [options]
Option Default Description
--port 5006 Port to serve on.
--address 0.0.0.0 Address to bind to.
--title FlowDash Application title in the browser tab.
--db-path <dir>/dashboards.db Path to the SQLite database.
--dev off Enable autoreload for development.
--admin off Enable the Panel admin interface.
--profiler none Profiler to use (pyinstrument, snakeviz).
--num-threads auto Thread pool size.
--allow-websocket-origin all Restrict allowed websocket origins.
--no-notifications off Disable Panel notifications.

Development mode

flowdash serve my_project/ --dev --port 8080

With --dev, the server reloads automatically when source files change.

Custom database location

By default, the dashboard database is created inside the project directory. Override this for shared deployments:

flowdash serve my_project/ --db-path /var/data/flowdash.db

Running as a module

You can also run FlowDash without the entry point script:

python -m panel_flowdash.command serve my_project/

Project structure requirements

my_project/
    SectionA/
        __init__.py         # optional but recommended
        component1.py       # must export `app`
        component2.py
    SectionB/
        page1.py
    .hidden/                # ignored (starts with .)
    _private/               # ignored (starts with _)

Each Python file must export an app attribute decorated with @register. Files starting with _ are skipped. Directories starting with . or _ are skipped.