dartnative_assists

Option+Enter widget assists and DartNative-specific warnings for DartNative projects. Runs inside the Dart Analysis Server, so it works the same in Android Studio, IntelliJ and VS Code.

Why

The analysis server ships "Wrap with Container", "Convert to StatefulWidget" and the rest of the Flutter assists, but each one checks that the widget class comes from package:flutter/src/widgets/framework.dart. DartNative's Widget lives in package:dartnative, so in a DartNative file those assists never appear. This plugin re-implements them against DartNative's types.

It also turns the DartNative behaviours that fail silently or crash at mount into analyzer warnings, so they are caught while typing instead of on a device.

Setup

In the analysis_options.yaml at the root of your project:

plugins:
  dartnative_assists: ^0.1.1

Restart the Dart Analysis Server once (Android Studio: Tools › Dart › Restart Dart Analysis Server; VS Code: "Dart: Restart Analysis Server"). The first restart after enabling builds the plugin isolate and takes a few seconds.

Requires Dart 3.11 or later; the DartNative dn toolchain ships a newer SDK.

Assists

With the cursor on a widget creation (the type name or anywhere in its arguments):

Assist	Result
Wrap with Center / Container / SizedBox / Expanded / Flexible / SafeArea / GestureDetector / GlassEffectContainer	Name(child: …)
Wrap with Padding	Padding(padding: const EdgeInsets.all(8.0), child: …)
Wrap with Column / Row / Stack	multi-line children: [ … ]
Wrap with Builder	Builder(builder: (context) => …)
Wrap with FutureBuilder / StreamBuilder / ValueListenableBuilder	…builder: (context, snapshot) => …
Wrap with widget…	a wrapper name you type
Remove this widget	replaces a wrapper with its single child
Swap with child / Swap with parent	exchanges two single-child: widgets, keeping their other arguments
Convert to children: / Convert to child:	switches between the two slots
Move widget up / down	reorders inside a children: list

With the cursor on a class header line:

Assist	Result
Convert to StatefulWidget	constructors and final fields stay on the widget; other members move to _XState; field references become widget.x, statics become X.y, $x interpolations become ${widget.x}
Convert to StatelessWidget	merges the State back; offered only when the State has no lifecycle overrides, mixins, or setState calls

Warnings (on by default)

Rule	What it catches
dartnative_fab_slot_android_only	Scaffold.floatingActionButton, which renders on Android and shows nothing on iOS
dartnative_menu_action_must_be_alone	a BarButtonItem with menu: beside other actions, which asserts at mount
dartnative_uniform_border_only	per-side Border(...), which DartNative ignores in favour of top
dartnative_mirror_text_controller	a TextField with a controller and no onChanged; the controller is one-way. Quick fix adds the mirror
dartnative_custom_paint_finite_size	CustomPaint(size: Size(double.infinity, …)), which paints off-screen
dartnative_positioned_must_be_outermost	a wrapper above Positioned in a Stack, which is dropped
dartnative_snackbar_action_not_wired	SnackBarAction.onPressed, which never fires

Opt-in lint:

Rule	What it catches
dartnative_offstage_loses_state	Offstage, which unmounts its child in DartNative

Enable it under the plugin entry:

plugins:
  dartnative_assists:
    version: ^0.1.1
    diagnostics:
      dartnative_offstage_loses_state: true

Suppress any rule on a line with // ignore: dartnative_assists/<rule>.

Development

dart pub get
dart test          # resolves against a stub package:dartnative, no SDK needed
dart analyze

tool/try_assists.dart runs the assists against a real file inside a DartNative project:

dart run tool/try_assists.dart path/to/app/lib/main.dart --find "Text(" --apply 1

The analysis_server_plugin and analyzer dependencies move in lockstep with the Dart SDK. After a dn upgrade, run dart pub upgrade and the tests.

When the plugin is enabled from a local path: and you change its source, the analysis server keeps running the isolate it already compiled. Delete ~/.dartServer/.plugin_manager and restart the server to pick up the change. An "error occurred while executing an analyzer plugin" line during dn analyze after an edit is that stale isolate, not a bug in the change.

Sources of the rules

Each warning encodes one fact from the DartNative widget reference or from on-device testing on DartNative 1.0.0 (September 2026). The rule's description names which. If DartNative changes a behaviour, the rule should be retired rather than kept as folklore.