Dartvel

A full-stack application platform built around Flutter.

You write pages, data models, backend functions, UI and business logic. Routing, the typed client, serialization, forms, the admin and the server are generated, compiled or served for you.

dartvel_dev is the umbrella package: one dependency that brings the whole framework at one coherent set of versions. The command you run is dartvel, from dartvel_cli.

Start a project

Install the CLI from pub.dev:

dart pub global activate dartvel_cli

Activate dartvel_cli, the command, rather than this package: this one is what an application depends on, and it depends on Flutter, which pub does not run as a global command. Pub puts dartvel in ~/.pub-cache/bin; add that to your PATH if your shell cannot find it.

The same CLI also comes as a self-contained binary, with no Dart or Flutter needed to run it:

brew install Danroyal001/dartvel_dev/dartvel_dev
npm install -g dartvel_dev

or take one from the releases page. Then:

dartvel create my_app
cd my_app
dartvel dev

The dartvel_cli README covers every install route, the command reference and configuration.

What is in it

Package	What it carries
dartvel_core	Pure Dart: data models, database, cache, queues and jobs, auth, notifications, AI adapters, the annotations the generator reads.
dartvel_flutter	Flutter: DVBox, DVText and the DVModifier chain, routing, signals, DV.Platform native APIs, generated forms and pages.
dartvel_shelf	The Rust/Axum server runtime, reached over FFI, speaking HTTP/2 and HTTP/3.
dartvel_cli	The dartvel command: generation, dev server, build, deploy.

It exposes them through these libraries:

Import	What it gives you
package:dartvel_dev/dartvel.dart	Everything: core, Flutter, the server's Router, serve and options, observability, Rust bindings.
package:dartvel_dev/dartvel_ui.dart	The whole of dartvel_flutter.
package:dartvel_dev/dartvel_core.dart	The whole of dartvel_core.
package:dartvel_dev/dartvel_backend.dart	@DVBackendFunction, @DVBackendCron, request and response types, and dartvel_shelf.
package:dartvel_dev/dartvel_database.dart	DV.Database, its adapters, and the cache adapters.
package:dartvel_dev/dartvel_storage.dart	DV.FileStorage, with its in-memory and S3 adapters.
package:dartvel_dev/dartvel_auth.dart	DV.Auth, providers and password hashing.
package:dartvel_dev/dartvel_ai.dart	DV.AI and the adapters for Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, OpenRouter, Ollama and a local one.
package:dartvel_dev/dartvel_platform.dart	DV.Platform and its device APIs.
package:dartvel_dev/dartvel_observability.dart	Logging and observability.
package:dartvel_dev/dartvel_rust_bindings.dart	DVRust, the Rust bindings.
package:dartvel_dev/dartvel_cli.dart	The CLI as a library, for tools that drive it from Dart.

In an application, pages and widgets import the generated barrel, lib/dartvel_client/dartvel_client.dart, which re-exports the framework alongside the application's own generated routes, models and client. Data models and backend functions, which the generator reads rather than writes, import package:dartvel_core/dartvel.dart.

The umbrella, or the individual packages

dartvel create writes the individual packages into the new project's pubspec.yaml: dartvel_core, dartvel_flutter and dartvel_shelf, with dartvel_cli as a dev dependency. That is the layout to start from.

Depend on the individual packages when:

• the code is pure Dart, such as a server, a worker or a command-line tool. dartvel_dev depends on Flutter, and dartvel_core does not;
• you want only part of the framework, or want to move one package ahead of the others;
• your source imports package:dartvel_core/... or package:dartvel_flutter/... by name, as the files dartvel create and dartvel generate write do. Those imports resolve through the umbrella, but the depend_on_referenced_packages lint reports each one until the package is declared.

Depend on dartvel_dev when you want one line that moves every Dartvel package together, for a Flutter application or a Flutter package built on Dartvel. Each release of dartvel_dev constrains its siblings to the versions published beside it (0.9.2 takes dartvel_core, dartvel_flutter and dartvel_cli ^0.9.2 and dartvel_shelf ^0.9.1), so raising that one constraint moves the whole set.

In an application, keep backend functions importing package:dartvel_core/dartvel.dart, not the umbrella. The generated server is pure Dart and leaves out any import that reaches Flutter, and package:dartvel_dev does. Declaring dartvel_core and dartvel_flutter beside the umbrella, with no version of their own to manage, keeps the lint quiet:

dependencies:
  flutter:
    sdk: flutter
  dartvel_dev: ^0.9.2
  dartvel_core: any       # the umbrella decides the version
  dartvel_flutter: any

dev_dependencies:
  dartvel_cli: ^0.9.2     # to run the CLI with `dart run dartvel_cli:dartvel`

dart run <package>:<executable> is for packages the project depends on directly, so declare dartvel_cli if you run the CLI that way rather than from an installed binary.

Every Dartvel package needs Dart 3.13 and Flutter 3.47 or newer.

example/README.md shows a project on the umbrella.

Every Dartvel package needs Dart 3.13 and Flutter 3.47 or newer.

example/README.md shows a project on the umbrella.

Why the package is dartvel_dev

The framework is Dartvel and the command is dartvel. Only the published identifier carries a suffix, because dartvel on pub.dev was taken on 2026-08-06 by an unrelated package. The same name is used on pub.dev, npm and Homebrew so that whichever way you install it, it is called the same thing.

Status, stated plainly

Dartvel is published early. Per-section implementation status lives in docs/spec-status.json and is checked by a tool that fails when a section claims to be built and the evidence it names does not exist. dartvel spec status summarises it.

Each entry carries two independent labels: how much the public surface can still move, and how much is actually built. A frozen contract that is deliberately unbuilt is marked as such rather than implied to work, and what is absent is written down next to what is present.

Verified per-target build status lives in docs/build-targets.md, where "verified" means the command was run and the artifact inspected, never inferred because a sibling target works.

Links

• dartvel.dev
• Repository and getting started
• Changelog; 0.7.0 carries breaking changes in the CLI, core and Flutter packages, listed in their changelogs.
• Issues