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The Flow Timeline view shows related logs grouped together, making it easy to trace multi-step operations. Flow Timeline

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What is a Flow?

A flow is a series of related logs connected by a shared flowId and ordered by stepIndex. See Flows for a conceptual overview.

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Viewing Flows

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From the Logs View

  1. Click any log that has a flow ID
  2. In the detail panel, click the flow ID link
  3. View all logs in that flow

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Flow Timeline View

The flow timeline displays:
  • All logs in the flow, ordered by step index
  • Time elapsed between steps
  • Total flow duration
  • Visual timeline showing progress

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Flow Details

  • Flow Name - Extracted from flow ID (e.g., checkout from checkout-a1b2c3d4)
  • Flow ID - Full identifier
  • Total Steps - Number of logs in the flow
  • Duration - Time from first to last log
  • Status - Success/Error based on final log level

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Timeline

Each step shows:
  • Step Index - Position in sequence (0, 1, 2…)
  • Time - When the step occurred
  • Delta - Time since previous step
  • Level - Log level (color-coded)
  • Message - Log message

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Example Flow

checkout-a1b2c3d4
Duration: 2.3s | 4 steps

[0] 0ms    info  "Checkout started"
[1] 150ms  info  "Cart validated"  (+150ms)
[2] 1.2s   info  "Payment processed"  (+1.05s)
[3] 2.3s   info  "Order confirmed"  (+1.1s)

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Filtering Flows

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By Flow ID

Search for a specific flow: 
flowId:checkout-a1b2c3d4

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By Flow Name

Search flows by prefix: 
flowId:checkout-*

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By Status

Filter to failed flows (those ending with an error):
  1. Filter logs to error level
  2. Look for logs with flowId
  3. Click through to see the full flow

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Flow Analysis

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Identifying Bottlenecks

Look at the time delta between steps: 
[0] 0ms    "Started"
[1] 50ms   "Validated"     (+50ms)   ← Fast
[2] 3.5s   "Payment done"  (+3.45s)  ← Slow step!
[3] 3.6s   "Complete"      (+100ms)  ← Fast
The payment step took 3.45 seconds - a potential optimization target.

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Error Analysis

When a flow ends in error: 
[0] info   "Checkout started"
[1] info   "Cart validated"
[2] error  "Payment failed: Card declined"
The flow stops at step 2 with an error - expand to see the full error details and stack trace.

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Missing Steps

If step indices have gaps, the flow may be incomplete: 
[0] info   "Started"
[2] info   "Processing"  ← Step 1 missing!
[3] info   "Complete"
Check your log level settings - filtered logs won’t increment the step index, but SDK bugs might.

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Best Practices

See Flows — Best Practices for naming, context, completion logging, and cross-service correlation guidelines.

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SDK Support

Create flows using the SDK: 
import { createTimberlogs } from 'timberlogs-client'

const timber = createTimberlogs({
  source: 'my-app',
  environment: 'production',
  apiKey: process.env.TIMBER_API_KEY,
})

const flow = timber.flow('checkout')

flow.info('Started checkout')
flow.info('Cart validated')
flow.info('Payment processed')
flow.info('Order confirmed')
See Flow Tracking in the SDK: TypeScript | Python.