Explicit Imports

A Dart analyzer plugin that enforces explicit imports.

This plugin flags any import directive that does not use either:

  • a show combinator, or
  • an as prefix

The goal is to reduce namespace pollution and make dependencies more explicit and readable.

What it flags

❌ Linted

import 'dart:math';
import 'package:foo/foo.dart' hide Bar;

✅ Allowed

import 'dart:math' show Random;
import 'dart:math' show Random, pi;
import 'dart:math' as math;
import 'package:foo/foo.dart' as foo show Foo;

Note: hide does not count as explicit. Only show or as satisfies the rule.

Installation

Add explicit_imports to analysis_options.yaml under a top-level plugins section:

plugins:
  explicit_imports:
    version: ^1.0.3
    diagnostics:
      explicit_dart_imports: true
      explicit_flutter_imports: true
      explicit_package_imports: true
      explicit_relative_imports: true

Then restart your Dart analysis server (or IDE) for the changes to take effect.

Rules

As seen above, the plugin splits imports into four separate rules for convenience, allowing you to enable or disable linting for certain categories as desired.

For instance, Flutter developers may want to disable the Flutter imports rule to prevent needing to list (or prepend to) all of the many widgets imported in a file.

All rules share the same behavior: the import must include either a show combinator or an as prefix.

explicit_dart_imports

Applies to core dart: imports.

explicit_flutter_imports

Applies to Flutter imports (package:flutter/... and package:flutter_test/...).

explicit_package_imports

Applies to all other (i.e. non-Flutter) package: imports.

explicit_relative_imports

Applies to relative imports (e.g. import 'foo.dart';, ./foo.dart, ../foo.dart).

Development

Run tests

dart test

Motivation

Explicit imports

  • make APIs easier to reason about
  • reduce accidental name conflicts
  • improve long-term maintainability of large Dart and Flutter codebases

Libraries

main