> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://rasa.com/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Flow Policy

> The Flow Policy is part of Rasa's new

<Info>
  **New in 3.7**

  The *Flow Policy* is part of Rasa's new
  [Conversational AI with Language Models (CALM)](/docs/learn/concepts/calm) approach and available starting
  with version `3.7.0`.
</Info>

<Info>
  **Adding Flow Policy and NLU-based policies together**

  If you are migrating an NLU-based assistant to CALM and want to do so iteratively,
  then check out the [guide on migration to CALM](/docs/pro/calm-with-nlu/migrating-from-nlu)
  for instructions on how to do so.
</Info>

The Flow Policy is a state machine that deterministically executes
the business logic defined in your [flows](/docs/reference/primitives/flows).

The Flow Policy oversees your assistant's state, handles state transitions, and
starts new flows when required for [Conversation Repair](/docs/learn/concepts/conversation-patterns).

### Adding the Flow Policy to your assistant

To use the Flow Policy, add it to the list of policies in your `config.yml`.

```yaml title="config.yml" theme={null}
# ...

policies:
  - name: FlowPolicy
```

The Flow Policy does not have any additional configuration parameters.

### How does it work?

The `FlowPolicy` employs a dialogue stack structure (Last In First Out) along with
internal slots to manage the state of a conversation.

### Managing the State

The Flow Policy manages state using a "dialogue stack".
Whenever a flow is started, it is pushed on to the dialogue stack, and this stack
keeps track of the current position in each of those flows.
The dialogue stack follows a "last in, first out" sequence, meaning that the flow
that was started most recently will be completed first.
Once it has completed, the next most recently started flow will continue.

Consider the `transfer_money` flow from the [tutorial](/docs/pro/tutorial):

```yaml title="flows.yml" theme={null}
flows:
  transfer_money:
    description: |
      This flow lets users send money to friends
      and family, in US Dollars.
    steps:
      - collect: recipient
      - collect: amount
      - action: utter_transfer_complete
```

When the conversation reaches a `collect` step, your assistant will ask the user for
information to help it fill the corresponding slot. In the first step, your assistant
will say *"Who would you like to send money to?"* and then wait for a response.

When the user responds, the [Dialogue Understanding](/docs/learn/concepts/dialogue-understanding) pipeline
will generate a sequence of commands which will determine what happens next.
In the simplest case, the user says something like *"to Jen"* and the command
`SetSlot("recipient", "Jen")` is generated.

The flow has collected the information it needed and the flow policy proceeds to the next step.
If instead the user says something like *"I want to send 100 dollars to Jen"*, the commands
`SetSlot("recipient", "Jen"), SetSlot("amount", 100)` will be generated, and the flow
policy will skip directly to the final step in the flow.

There are many things a user might say *other than* providing the value of the slot your
assistant has requested.
They may clarify that they didn't want to send money after all, ask a clarifying question,
or change their mind about something they said earlier.
Those cases are handled by
[Conversation Repair](/docs/learn/concepts/conversation-patterns).

### Starting New Flows

A flow can be started in several ways:

* A flow is started when a Rasa component puts the flow on the stack. For
  example, the [LLM Command Generator](/docs/reference/config/components/llm-command-generators) puts a flow
  on the stack when it determines that a flow would be a good fit for the
  current conversation.
* One flow can ["link" to another flow](/docs/reference/primitives/flow-steps#link), which will initiate
  the linked flow and return to the original flow once the linked flow
  completes.
* In the case of [Conversation Repair](/docs/learn/concepts/conversation-patterns), default flows can be
  automatically added by the `FlowPolicy`.


## Related topics

- [Policy Overview](/docs/reference/config/policies/overview.md)
- [Tracing](/docs/reference/integrations/tracing.md)
- [Configuring Your Assistant](/docs/pro/build/configuring-assistant.md)
- [Overview](/docs/reference/config/overview.md)
- [Rasa Pro Version Migration Guide](/docs/reference/changelogs/rasa-pro-migration-guide.md)