Plan
Flags
Last updated: October 2026
Flags are automatic warnings on your ideas. When an idea touches something risky, like payments, personal data or expensive services, Flowmaps puts a small badge on the card, so you think about it before you build, not after.
A flag is a heads-up, not a stop sign. You can still move a flagged idea forward, generate build prompts for it, and build it.
Flags are not legal advice. That's why every flag ends with: "not legal advice, flag for review." If a flag matters for your business, check it with someone qualified.
What a flag looks like
- A badge on the card, like 1 flag or 2 flags.
- Hover over the badge to read the full explanation.
- Click the card to see its flags in the side panel and mark them as reviewed.
- The Kanban and Ventures screens show how many open flags each idea and venture has.
Ready1 flag
Customers pay in the app
Automatic warning: worth checking before you build this.
Security · blockerStoring card numbers yourself is risky. Let a payment provider like Stripe handle them; not legal advice, flag for review.
The four types
There are only four types of flag:
| Type | What it's about | Triggered by words like |
|---|---|---|
| Legal | Terms, contracts, copyright, scraping other sites | terms of service, copyright, license, scraping, contract, affiliate |
| Security | Logins, passwords, payment details, file uploads | sign up, login, password, credit card, API key, upload, admin |
| Compliance | Privacy laws and industry rules | GDPR, personal data, cookies, tracking, payments, health data, children |
| Cost | Things that cost money per use | AI/LLM, SMS, video, GPU, real-time, third-party APIs |
How serious is it?
The badge color shows the most serious flag on the card:
- 🔴 Blocker: solve this before building, e.g. storing credit card numbers or health data.
- 🟠 Warning: worth checking before building, e.g. user logins or sending SMS.
- ⚪ Info: good to know.
When flags appear
Flowmaps checks an idea:
- when you add it to the mind map, and
- when you change its title or notes.
Each type of flag appears at most once per card.
Who decides?
- Fixed rules decide whether a card gets a flag, and which type and severity. They look for words in the title and notes, like "credit card" or "GDPR". The rules are the same for everyone and never invent new types.
- Claude writes the explanation. If you've added your Anthropic API key in Settings, Claude reads the idea together with the rest of your venture's mind map and explains the specific risk in plain words, plus what to check.
- No API key? Flags still appear, with a short standard text that says which words triggered them.
What to do with a flag
- Read it. Hover over the badge, or open the card.
- Decide. Is the risk real for your idea? Often the fix is a new idea on your mind map, like "Use Stripe for payments".
- Mark it reviewed in the card's side panel. The flag disappears from the card and from the counts, and that type of flag won't come back on that card.
Example
You add an idea called "Users sign up and save credit cards."
Two rules fire: sign up and credit cards both fall under Security, and credit cards makes it a blocker. The card gets a red 1 flag badge. Hovering over it shows something like:
Security · blocker: Storing credit card details on your own servers makes them a high-value target for attackers. Before building, check whether a payment provider like Stripe can handle the card details, so card numbers never touch your system; not legal advice, flag for review.
You decide to use Stripe, add the idea "Integrate Stripe for payments" to the mind map, and mark the flag as reviewed.