The flask command is a CLI for interacting with Flask apps. The docs describe how to use CLI commands and add custom commands. The flask run command is the preferred way to start the development server.
Never use this command to deploy publicly, use a production WSGI server such as Gunicorn, uWSGI, Waitress, or mod_wsgi.
Set the FLASK_APP environment variable to point the command at your app. It can point to an import name or file name. It will automatically detect an app instance or an app factory called create_app. Set FLASK_ENV=development to run with the debugger and reloader.
$ export FLASK_APP=sample
$ export FLASK_ENV=development
$ flask run
On Windows CMD, use set instead of export.
> set FLASK_APP=sample
For PowerShell, use $env:.
> $env:FLASK_APP = "sample"
The python sample.py command runs a Python file and sets __name__ == "__main__". If the main block calls app.run(), it will run the development server. If you use an app factory, you could also instantiate an app instance at this point.
if __name__ == "__main__":
app = create_app()
app.run(debug=True)
Both these commands ultimately start the Werkzeug development server, which as the name implies starts a simple HTTP server that should only be used during development. You should prefer using the flask run command over the app.run() method.