Flows

A flow is a prebuilt OpenTelemetry Collector configuration from Telflo's curated catalog, each solving one problem, such as PII redaction, host fleet monitoring, RED metrics from spans, or dual-shipping telemetry during a migration from one backend to another. Using a flow creates your own configuration from it: an independent copy you edit like any other configuration.

Every flow is pinned to the collector distribution and version it was validated against, and contains no hardcoded destinations or credentials: endpoints and secrets are ${env:NAME} references you supply at deployment. The catalog is curated by Telflo, and each flow shows who built it, as Built by Telflo or Built by the flow's author; flows cannot be created or edited by users. The OTel to ClickHouse flow targets the ClickStack distribution, available in private preview; every other flow targets OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib. See Key concepts.

Browse flows

The catalog appears in two places: a public library on the website, an editorial view that does not always list the same flows, and the Flows page in the app, which is the catalog itself. The same catalog is also readable from the terminal with the Telflo CLI and through the Telflo API.

The public library

Go to telflo.com/flows. The library is public, so you can browse it without an account.

• Search flows by name or component, and filter by signal type and category: collection, cost control, Kubernetes, migration, compliance and privacy, reliability, and RED metrics.
• A flow's page describes the problem it solves, how the data moves through its pipelines, each component's role, and the gotchas to know before running it. Flows researched against external material also list their sources under Sources and references.
• Use this flow in Telflo opens the flow's page in the app, where you sign in to continue.

The library is an editorial catalog, so it does not always list the same flows as the app. A public link to a flow that exists only in the app opens the flow's in-app page after you sign in.

Flows in the app

Open Flows from the navigation. Signing in is required.

• Search flows by name, summary, or tag, and filter by signal type: Traces, Metrics, or Logs.
• Each card shows the flow's name, a one-line summary, who built it, and the signal types it covers. Select View to open the flow.

A flow's page in the app shows its full description and the complete collector YAML, with a collector v badge and the line Validated against the flow's collector distribution and version, such as OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib v0.147.0 or ClickStack v2.36.0. A Before you use this section lists what the configuration needs:

• Sends data to: the exporters in the configuration.
• The environment variables you must set before it runs.
• The organization variables to define in the vault. An organization variable the flow references but your organization has not defined is delivered to the collector as-is, not reported as an error.

A flow built from a published external configuration also links to its source, as View on GitHub, View on GitLab, or View source.

Use a flow

1. In the app, open the flow and select Use this flow.
2. In the dialog, keep or edit the Configuration name and Description. They are prefilled from the flow, and the dialog shows the collector version the copy is pinned to.
3. Select Create configuration.

Telflo creates a new configuration in your organization, locked to the flow's collector distribution and with version 1 pinned to the flow's collector version, and opens it in the editor. The copy is independent: editing it does not affect the flow, and later updates to the flow do not change your configuration. If the flow's distribution is not available to your account, the copy is created on OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib at its default collector version instead, and the flow's page says so: Creates a configuration on OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib with that version.

You can also start from a flow when creating a configuration: New configuration opens a dialog with two options, Blank configuration and Start from a flow. On the Name Your Configuration step, when more than one distribution is available to your account, the flow's distribution and collector version appear as a read-only line ending in set by this flow, in place of the Distribution choice a blank configuration offers. See Managing configurations.

Flows from the CLI

The Telflo CLI reads the same catalog, so a flow can start a configuration without the app.

telflo flows list                                 # a table of slug, name, signals, collector, and who built it
telflo flows get pii-redaction-gateway            # description and YAML
telflo flows pull pii-redaction-gateway -o config.yaml
telflo config create --name "PII Redaction Gateway" -f config.yaml

telflo flows pull writes the flow's YAML and, when writing to a file with -o, reports the collector it was validated on, for example validated on otelcol-contrib 0.147.0. A configuration created from that file with telflo config create is not the same as Use this flow in the app: it is locked to OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib and takes the server's default collector version rather than the flow's pin, and its YAML is stored without validation. Set the collector version in the editor if it matters, and run telflo validate config.yaml before creating the configuration. The OTel to ClickHouse flow, which targets ClickStack, can be pulled this way, but the resulting configuration is on OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib. See Commands.

After you create the configuration

• Set values for the configuration's ${env:NAME} references in the deploy environment. They are also reported as deployment requirements by validation, and the install dialog lists them so you can include values at deploy time. See Install collectors.
• Adjust the pipeline, test it, then publish and deploy it like any configuration.