The gradient flow bears a close resemblance to the coarse graining, the guiding principle of the renormalization group (RG). In the case of scalar field theory, a precise connection has been made between the gradient flow and the RG flow of the Wilso
n action in the exact renormalization group (ERG) formalism. By imitating the structure of this connection, we propose an ERG differential equation that preserves manifest gauge invariance in Yang--Mills theory. Our construction in continuum theory can be extended to lattice gauge theory.
