Flowise flows are public to anyone with the ID until you assign an API key

TL;DR

Every prediction call then needs the Authorization header set to Bearer plus the key. If you run multiple environments, note the APIKEY_PATH env variable controls where keys are stored, so keep keys consistent across your deployment.

Steps

1. Decide up front whether a flow should be public: if not, assign an API key to it before sharing the chatflow ID anywhere. Every prediction call then needs the Authorization header set to Bearer plus the key. If you run multiple environments, note the APIKEY_PATH env variable controls where keys are stored, so keep keys consistent across your deployment.

When to use

You are seeing this: Decide up front whether a flow should be public: if not, assign an API key to it before sharing the chatflow ID anywhere. Use this skill when you run into "Flowise flows are public to anyone with the ID until you assign an API key".

When not to use

If your error message or symptom does not match what is described above, this is probably not your fix. Search for your exact error text instead of forcing this one to fit.

Versions

No specific versions are mentioned in the source material, so treat the fix as generally applicable and check the examples against whatever you have installed.

Why this happens

The original report does not dig into a root cause. It documents the symptom and the fix that resolved it.

Source: Flowise authorization docs note the access-control default that surprises teams. After you build a chatflow or agentflow, it is public by default, so anyone who knows the chatflow ID can run predictions through embed or API. To restrict it, create an API key in the API Keys section, assign it to the chatflow, and from then on every HTTP call must carry the key in the Authorization header as a Bearer token.

Verified resolution: Decide up front whether a flow should be public: if not, assign an API key to it before sharing the chatflow ID anywhere. Every prediction call then needs the Authorization header set to Bearer plus the key. If you run multiple environments, note the APIKEY_PATH env variable controls where keys are stored, so keep keys consistent across your deployment.

Source URL: https://github.com/Meurane/FlowiseDocs/blob/main/configuration/authorization/chatflow-level.md