Publishing from the Terminal

This tutorial walks through everything you need to go from a local folder of Markdown files to a live website — using only your terminal.

By the end you'll know how to publish files, push updates incrementally, preview changes before applying them, and manage your sites.

What you need

• A Flowershow account (sign up for free at flowershow.app)
• Some Markdown files you want to publish

---

1. Install the CLI

macOS / Linux — run the install script:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/flowershow/flowershow/main/apps/cli/install.sh | sh

Windows — download fl_windows_amd64.zip from the releases page and add the extracted binary to your PATH.

Verify it worked:

fl --version

---

2. Log in

Authenticate with your Flowershow account. This uses a browser-based device flow — the CLI will print a URL and a short code, you visit the URL, enter the code, and you're done.

fl login

Your token is saved to ~/.flowershow/token.json, so you only need to do this once. To check you're logged in at any point:

fl whoami

---

3. Publish your first site

From a folder

The most common case: a folder of Markdown files.

fl ./my-notes

The CLI will:

1. Scan everything inside ./my-notes
2. Create a new site named after the folder
3. Upload all the files
4. Give you a URL like https://my.flowershow.app/@{username}/my-notes

From a single file

You can also publish just one file:

fl ./intro.md

The site will be named after the file (intro).

With a custom site name

If you don't want the site named after your folder, use --name:

fl --name project-docs ./my-notes

For folder mode, the name is saved to a .flowershow file inside your folder after the first publish. Subsequent fl ./my-notes runs read it automatically — you only need --name once.

Skipping the confirmation prompt

When creating a new site, fl shows a prompt with the proposed name and URL so you can accept or change it. To skip this (useful in scripts):

fl --yes ./my-notes

Running fl on an already-published folder

fl is idempotent. If the site already exists, it syncs changes instead of erroring. Just run the same command every time — no special flags needed.

---

4. Push updates

After making changes to your files, just run fl again:

fl ./my-notes

That's it. fl compares your local files against what's on the server using SHA-1 hashes and only uploads what changed. For folder mode it remembers the site name via the .flowershow file, so no flags needed.

---

5. Manage your sites

See all your published sites

fl list

This shows each site name, its URL, and when it was created and last updated.

Delete a site

fl delete my-notes

You'll be asked to confirm. Sites with an active premium subscription can't be deleted until the subscription is cancelled first.

---

File filtering

The CLI is smart about what it includes:

• If your folder has a .gitignore, those patterns are respected
• Without a .gitignore, common clutter is ignored automatically: node_modules/, .git/, .env files, build output (dist/, build/, .next/), and OS files (.DS_Store, Thumbs.db)

Your folder needs at least one .md, .mdx, or .html file — if it doesn't have any, publish will stop with an error.

---

Putting it together: a typical workflow

Here's what a day-to-day workflow looks like once you're set up:

# First time
fl login
fl --name meeting-notes ./notes   # creates the site, saves name to .flowershow

# Every time after
fl ./notes                         # detects existing site and syncs changes

That's it. Write in your editor, run fl, share the URL.

---

Common errors