Fluera

Getting started

Welcome to Fluera

The essential map. Where to start, what to skip on your first session, and the three things that will decide whether Fluera works for you.

Updated 20 April 2026

Welcome. This is the user documentation — practical guidance for making Fluera work the way it was designed to. If you are looking for the why (the research, the cognitive science, the design philosophy), start at the science page instead.

The three things that matter

Almost everything else follows from these three.

  1. Write by hand, not by typing. Fluera is designed around the pen. A lot of the learning happens in the slowness of handwriting — skip the pen and you skip half the benefit.
  2. Attempt before you reveal. Every feature that looks like it is asking you to do something before seeing an answer really is. The attempt — including the failed attempt — is the mechanism. Skipping it turns Fluera back into a passive reading app.
  3. Come back. Fluera is a spaced-repetition tool. Opening the app once is almost useless; opening it on day 1, day 3, day 7, day 14 is where the actual results live. Set a reminder.

What to do in your first session

  • Create a new canvas for a topic you are actively studying this week.
  • Pick one brush and stay with it for the first session. Don’t get distracted by the brush library.
  • Write 8–15 concepts by hand. Place each one in a position that feels right spatially.
  • Draw arrows between concepts you think are related.
  • Resist the urge to tap Socratic mode until you have written at least 10 nodes. The AI works best against substance.
  • Close the canvas. Do not re-read it. You will come back tomorrow.

What to skip on day one

  • Cloud sync (enable it only when you have a second device and a workflow)
  • All AI features except Socratic on a single cluster (master one before layering)
  • Fog of War (that’s for exam prep, weeks out)
  • Time Travel / audio sync (record your first lecture with it, then forget about it until week 2)

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