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.

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 change to take effect.

Note: You do not need to add explicit_imports to your pubspec.yaml.

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.

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).

Ignoring rules

To suppress a diagnostic on a particular import, add an // ignore: comment above the import with the relevant rule name:

// ignore: explicit_imports/explicit_dart_imports
import 'dart:math';
// ignore: explicit_imports/explicit_package_imports
import 'package:foo/foo.dart';

Motivation

Explicit imports

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