Flow Behind CLI

Flow Behind brings terminal and AI-agent workflows to Google Flow: images, videos, characters, voices, reusable assets and recoverable batches.

Built by Behind Official for creators and developers who want to drive browser-based creative workflows from their terminal, coding agent or MCP client.

Your terminal / AI agent → Flow Behind CLI → local bridge → browser extension → Google Flow
                                                     ← progress, results and downloads ←

This is a separately packaged, modular adaptation of Flow Connector CLI 1.0.9. It preserves its 16 CLI modes, command options, browser protocol and four MCP tools. See the feature map and review notes for coverage and verification limits.

Requirements

Related MCP server: BrowserMCP

Install with npm

With Node.js 20 or newer installed, run:

npm install --global flow-behind-cli
flow-behind --version
flow-behind --help

This installs both flow-behind and flow-behind-mcp. The npm package includes the built CLI, MCP server and agent skill; no Git clone or build step is needed. Connect the browser extension using the steps below before generating media.

To update later:

npm install --global flow-behind-cli@latest

You can also run a command without a global install:

npx --yes --package flow-behind-cli flow-behind --help

Package: flow-behind-cli on npm.

Install from GitHub (development)

Run these commands in PowerShell, Terminal or your preferred shell:

git clone https://github.com/behindofficial/flow-behind-cli.git
cd flow-behind-cli
npm ci
npm run build
npm install -g .
flow-behind --version
flow-behind --help

The global install makes both flow-behind and flow-behind-mcp available. If global installation is unavailable, run the CLI directly from the checkout:

node bin/flow-behind.mjs --help
node bin/flow-behind.mjs status --site flow

Use the npm installation above for normal use. A checkout is useful for editing the source, running tests or building a local .tgz with npm pack.

Browser connection

Install a compatible Flow Connector browser extension using the upstream setup instructions. The separately supplied Flow Behind Connector build also uses this protocol; its extension files are distributed separately from this CLI repository. Keep one connector active, open Google Flow, sign in, and keep its browser window visible. This package implements the CLI, bridge and MCP server; the extension performs the actual browser actions. The supplied extension is version 1.2.7. Its plan limits, login requirements and pacing rules remain in force.

Start the bridge in one terminal:

flow-behind bridge start

Then check the connection and generate an image from another terminal:

flow-behind status --site flow
flow-behind doctor --site flow
flow-behind generate create flow-text-to-image --prompt "A red fox in snow" --wait

The extension performs the download; the CLI reports job progress and resulting file paths. Available models, credits and access depend on your Google account and the extension provider's plan.

The bridge auto-starts when generation needs it and binds only to 127.0.0.1:8791. Read-only status and doctor do not start it. You can run it in the foreground with flow-behind bridge start, or use flow-behind --port 8792 bridge start and configure the extension for that port. Only one bridge can use a port. An existing compatible bridge can be reused; to run the new bridge implementation on 8791, first stop the old idle daemon.

Use

flow-behind doctor --site flow
flow-behind modes
flow-behind generate create flow-text-to-image --prompt "A red fox in snow" --wait
flow-behind generate create flow-image-to-image --prompt "Watercolour" --image .\photo.png --wait
flow-behind generate create flow-text-to-video --prompt "Waves at sunset" --duration 8 --wait
flow-behind generate create flow-frame-to-video --prompt "She turns and smiles" --image .\frame.png --wait

# Submit the batch, then inspect it.
flow-behind generate create flow-text-to-image --prompt "First scene" --index 1 --folder campaign
flow-behind generate create flow-text-to-image --prompt "Second scene" --index 2 --folder campaign
flow-behind generate list
flow-behind generate list --failed --run campaign
flow-behind generate resume campaign --dry-run
flow-behind generate resume campaign
flow-behind stop --site flow
flow-behind queue clear --site flow

flow-behind merge .\clip1.mp4 .\clip2.mp4 -o .\final.mp4
flow-behind clean .\own-generation.png --mark flow --mode delogo -o .\clean.png
flow-behind skill install flow-generate

For full options: flow-behind generate create --help. All original defaults are preserved except product identity and the default download folder (flow-behind). Some legacy commands default to Grok, including status, stop, queue clear, reload-extension and clean --mark; pass --site flow / --mark flow explicitly.

merge and clean need FFmpeg and ffprobe on PATH or FFMPEG_PATH pointing to ffmpeg. Clean supports crop, delogo, logo cover and LaMa inpaint for your own generated media. The Python runner is included (it was absent from the supplied package). Inpainting additionally requires Python with torch, numpy, and pillow, and downloads the LaMa model on first use. Set PYTHON to the Python executable, or FLOW_BEHIND_LAMA_MODEL to an existing TorchScript model. Images default to inpaint for --mark flow, falling back to delogo for missing optional dependencies; videos default to crop. An explicit --mode inpaint fails rather than silently falling back. This does not remove invisible SynthID metadata or change the fact that media is AI-generated.

MCP

After the npm global install, configure an MCP client with:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "flow-behind": {
      "command": "flow-behind-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Without global installation, use node with the absolute path to bin/flow-behind-mcp.mjs in args. Windows example:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "flow-behind": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["C:/path/to/flow-behind-cli/bin/flow-behind-mcp.mjs"]
    }
  }
}

The tool names remain flow_generate, flow_status, flow_list_jobs, and flow_get_job so existing tool integrations remain compatible. The MCP server identifies as flow-behind. As in the original product, advanced character, voice and batch flags are available through the CLI; the four-tool MCP interface does not expose every CLI option.

Configuration and stored data

History, run manifests, plan observations and update cache use the new state folder. Existing ~/.grok-auto data is not overwritten. To use a copy of legacy history, copy jobs.json and runs/ into the new state folder while both daemons are stopped. Interrupted jobs become failed on startup, and named runs can be resumed. Do not run two daemons against the same state folder.

The upstream extension-notice feed remains enabled for compatibility. No prompts or files are sent to that feed. A branded endpoint can replace it with FLOW_BEHIND_CONFIG_URL. npm release checks are opt-in until an actual Flow Behind release package exists. CLI auto-replacement only targets an idle bridge that identifies itself as this product, not an unrelated process or an upstream bridge.

Develop and verify

npm run check
npm pack

Edit src/, then rebuild. dist/ contains generated runnable bundles and source maps; it is ignored by Git and created locally by npm run build.

bin/ contains the two hand-written Node.js entry scripts registered as CLI commands in package.json, so it is kept in source control. A distributable package needs both bin/ and dist/: npm pack runs the prepack build and includes them through the package's explicit files list. Dependencies, logs, test output and package archives are excluded from the repository.

Tests use temporary state directories and a simulated extension on random ports; they do not submit real Google Flow generations. FFmpeg tests create short local fixtures. LaMa model inference and real browser generation require separate live verification. Source provenance and attribution are in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

To update a cloned installation, run git pull --ff-only, npm ci, npm run build, then npm install -g . from the repository directory. To remove the global commands, run npm uninstall -g flow-behind-cli.

Troubleshooting

Support and attribution

Report CLI problems in GitHub Issues. Include your OS, Node version, CLI version and relevant diagnostics; remove private prompts, local paths and account details before posting logs.

Licensed under MIT. Upstream Flow Connector CLI contributions are credited in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md. Flow Behind is not affiliated with Google or the original Flow Connector author.