---

name: phi-flow description: "Routes PhiFlow simulation, geometry, optimization, and visualization workflows through focused sub-skills." disable-model-invocation: true metadata: disco-role: operating license: MIT

PhiFlow

PhiFlow is a differentiable simulation toolkit for physics, geometry, fields, scene I/O, visualization, and gradient-based optimization.

Use this root skill as a router, not as a manual. Start with the sub-skill that matches the user's task, and only read deeper references when the task needs the verified API details, safe scripts, or troubleshooting notes.

Start here

• If the user needs to install, import, or inspect backends, use sub-skills/installation-and-backends/SKILL.md.
• If the task is about grids, fields, geometries, meshes, scenes, or data I/O, use sub-skills/core-data-and-geometry/SKILL.md.
• If the task is about advection, diffusion, incompressible flow, waves, FLIP, SPH, or other direct PDE steps, use sub-skills/physics-and-simulation/SKILL.md.
• If the task is about gradients, Jacobians, solves, inverse problems, or optimization through simulation, use sub-skills/optimization-and-learning/SKILL.md.
• If the task is about plotting, interactive display, controls, or scalar logs, use sub-skills/visualization-and-ui/SKILL.md.

Install and smoke check

For a local PhiFlow checkout, install the package in that environment with:

python -m pip install -e .

Then run the bundled smoke helper from this skill tree:

python scripts/check_install.py --show-backends

If you only need the published package, pip install phiflow is the distribution name and phi is the import name.

phi.verify() is the canonical package smoke check. It confirms the minimal runtime setup and reports the Dash/Plotly status used by the web interface.

What this root skill covers

PhiFlow's public surface is split across a few distinct workflows:

• phi.field and phi.geom for grid, field, geometry, mesh, SDF, and scene handling.
• phi.physics for advection, diffusion, incompressible projection, waves, FLIP/PIC coupling, and SPH helpers.
• phi.math and the backend integrations for gradients, Jacobians, solves, and JIT-compiled differentiable workflows.
• phi.vis for plotting, display, scalar log loading, and runtime controls.

Common entry points

• from phi.flow import * for the common simulation/geometry names.
• from phi.physics import advect, diffuse, fluid, wave, sph for direct PDE work.
• import phi.vis as vis for plotting and UI workflows.
• from phi.field import Scene for scene-backed data round-trips.

Read this before staleness checks

If the current checkout looks different from the version this skill was built from, read references/repo-provenance.md before reusing the skill or refreshing it.

Runtime files

• references/repo-provenance.md - source snapshot and refresh baseline.
• references/repo-routing-metadata.json
  • router metadata for the live skill registry.
• references/troubleshooting.md - cross-cutting install, backend, and stale-doc failures.
• scripts/check_install.py - safe import and runtime smoke check.