scopo

A Flutter package for managing scopes: dependency injection, state, and lifecycle inside the widget tree. A scope owns its dependencies, initializes them asynchronously, provides them to its subtree, and disposes of them in order — after its child scopes are gone.

Why another one

provider, riverpod and get_it answer one question: how a value reaches the widget that needs it. scopo answers a different one — how a value is owned over time: when it is built, what the screen shows while it is being built, what happens if the widget leaves before it is ready, and in what order things are let go on the way out.

That is worth a package only when the objects have a lifecycle of their own — a database, a socket, a player, a signed-in session. What scopo adds:

• initialization is a Stream, so a scope has a loading branch, a progress value and an error branch without a state machine of your own;
• an unfinished initialization is cancelled, and whatever it already took is given back; the widget leaving the tree is enough to start that;
• disposal is ordered — a scope waits for its child scopes before releasing its own dependencies, so nothing is released while something below still holds it;
• scopeKey serialises two scopes over one resource: a re-created scope waits for the previous holder of the same key to finish letting go;
• close() keeps the last frame on screen while an asynchronous teardown runs, instead of tearing the subtree away mid-flight;
• every step is observable through a typed observer — the failures included.

Riverpod covers part of this: FutureProvider and AsyncValue give the loading and error branches, and ref.onDispose releases what a provider took. What it does not give is waiting — onDispose is a synchronous callback, so "release the database only once every scope that used it has finished letting go" has nowhere to go. Disposal there follows the provider graph and its listeners; here it follows the widget tree.

When not to take scopo. If your dependencies are built synchronously and released by a single dispose(), everything above costs you something and buys you nothing: provider is smaller, better known, and enough.

Features

• Scopes: a widget that owns dependencies and a state and provides both to its descendants.
• Async initialization: initialization is a Stream. It reports progress, drives the loading and error branches, and is cancelled if the scope leaves the tree before it completes.
• Ordered disposal: a scope waits for its child scopes to be disposed of before disposing of its own dependencies (waitForChildrenTimeout), and scopeKey makes a re-created scope wait for the previous scope with the same key.
• Selective rebuilds: select and selectParam subscribe a descendant to a single value; notifyDependents rebuilds only those descendants, never the scope's own subtree. setState is the other half and is untouched: it rebuilds the state's own subtree and reaches no subscriber.
• Graceful closing: close() freezes the subtree as a screenshot and shows buildOnClosing while the asynchronous disposal is running.
• Nine families: from a widget that only passes its own parameters down to a full scope with a dependency container — take the smallest that fits.
• Observable lifecycle: a typed observer is told about every initialization, progress step, failure and teardown.

Installation

flutter pub add scopo

import 'package:scopo/scopo.dart';

The families

Eight of them, and the right one is the smallest that fits. They are listed here from the smallest up — the same order the topics are in — and the largest, Scope, gets a section of its own below.

what you own	take
nothing but the widget's own parameters	ScopeWidgetBase
a plain object with a dispose()	ScopeModel
a Listenable — ChangeNotifier, ValueNotifier, …	ScopeNotifier
objects that already exist, but whose lifecycle the tree has to drive	AsyncScope
a value built asynchronously	AsyncDataScope
…and that value is a controller with an init and a dispose of its own	AsyncControllerScope
a state object with the full asynchronous lifecycle and close()	LiteScope
a container of dependencies and a state on top of it	Scope

ScopeWidgetBase

Provides the widget's own parameters to its subtree. Descendants subscribe per parameter, so an unrelated parameter change does not rebuild them.

final class ApiConfig extends ScopeWidgetBase<ApiConfig> {
  final String apiKey;

  const ApiConfig({
    super.key,
    required this.apiKey,
    required super.child,
  });

  static String apiKeyOf(BuildContext context) =>
      ScopeWidgetBase.select<ApiConfig, String>(
        context,
        (widget) => widget.apiKey,
      );

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) => child;
}

In depth: the topic ScopeWidget.

ScopeModel

Owns a plain Dart object: create builds it, dispose releases it. The model is not observable, so descendants are notified when the ScopeModel widget itself is rebuilt, and a selector then filters out the unchanged values. Subclass ScopeModelBase to get a named scope with its own static accessors.

class UserGate extends StatelessWidget {
  const UserGate({super.key});

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) => ScopeModel<UserModel>(
        create: (context) => UserModel('Alice'),
        dispose: (model) => model.dispose(),
        builder: (context) => const UserView(),
      );
}

class UserView extends StatelessWidget {
  const UserView({super.key});

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    // Without a subscription:
    final user = ScopeModel.of<UserModel>(context, listen: false);

    // With a subscription to the selected value:
    final name = ScopeModel.select<UserModel, String>(
      context,
      (model) => model.name,
    );

    return Text('$name (${user.name})');
  }
}

In depth: the topic ScopeModel.

ScopeNotifier

The same as ScopeModel, but for a Listenable (ChangeNotifier, ValueNotifier, …): the scope subscribes to the model and rebuilds the descendants whose selected value has changed. ScopeNotifierBase is the subclassable variant.

class CounterGate extends StatelessWidget {
  const CounterGate({super.key});

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) => ScopeNotifier<Counter>(
        create: (context) => Counter(),
        dispose: (counter) => counter.dispose(),
        builder: (context) => const CounterText(),
      );
}

class CounterText extends StatelessWidget {
  const CounterText({super.key});

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    // Rebuilt on `notifyListeners`, and only if the selected value changed.
    final value = ScopeNotifier.select<Counter, int>(
      context,
      (counter) => counter.value,
    );

    return TextButton(
      onPressed: ScopeNotifier.of<Counter>(context, listen: false).increment,
      child: Text('$value'),
    );
  }
}

In depth: the topic ScopeNotifier.

AsyncScope

Async initialization and disposal without a dependency container: use it when the objects are already reachable (a singleton, a repository from a parent scope) and only their lifecycle has to be driven by the tree. Descendants can read the current state with AsyncScope.of(context, listen: …).state.

class ConnectionGate extends StatelessWidget {
  const ConnectionGate({super.key});

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) => AsyncScope(
        initScope: (context) async* {
          yield AsyncScopeProgress('connecting');
          await connection.open();

          yield AsyncScopeReady();
        },
        disposeScope: () => connection.close(),
        progressBuilder: (context, progress) => Text('$progress'),
        errorBuilder: (context, error, stackTrace, progress) => Text('$error'),
        builder: (context) => const HomeScreen(),
      );
}

In depth: the topic AsyncScope.

AsyncDataScope

AsyncScope plus one value: the data produced by initData is passed to builder and to disposeData. Descendants read it with AsyncDataScope.of<Database>(context, listen: false).data.

class DatabaseGate extends StatelessWidget {
  const DatabaseGate({super.key});

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) => AsyncDataScope<Database>(
        initData: (context) async* {
          yield AsyncDataScopeProgress('opening the database');

          yield AsyncDataScopeReady(await Database.open());
        },
        disposeData: (database) => database.close(),
        progressBuilder: (context, progress) => Text('$progress'),
        errorBuilder: (context, error, stackTrace, progress) => Text('$error'),
        builder: (context, database) => DatabaseView(database: database),
      );
}

In depth: the topic AsyncDataScope.

AsyncControllerScope

AsyncDataScope whose value is a controller with a lifecycle of its own. The scope creates it, awaits its init, tells it to let go the moment the scope leaves the tree, and awaits its dispose — on every path, including the two where a hand-written version loses it: an init that threw, and an init interrupted before it finished. Reach for it when the scope exists because something has to run while a part of the tree is on screen, rather than because something has to be shown.

final class Player extends AsyncControllerScopeBase<Player, PlayerController> {
  const Player({super.key, required super.child}) : super(scopeKey: Player);

  @override
  PlayerController createController(BuildContext context) =>
      PlayerController(api: ScopeModel.of<Api>(context, listen: false));

  @override
  Widget buildOnProgress(BuildContext context) => const SizedBox.shrink();

  @override
  Widget buildOnError(BuildContext context, Object error, StackTrace stack) =>
      const SizedBox.shrink();

  @override
  Widget buildOnReady(BuildContext context, PlayerController controller) =>
      child;
}

final class PlayerController extends ScopeController {
  final Api api;

  StreamSubscription<Track>? _subscription;

  PlayerController({required this.api});

  /// Awaited before the ready branch is built. `mounted` says whether the
  /// scope is still there after an `await`.
  @override
  Future<void> init() async {
    final session = await api.openSession();
    if (!mounted) return;

    _subscription = session.tracks.listen(_onTrack);
  }

  /// Synchronous, the moment the scope leaves the tree.
  @override
  void onUnmount() => unawaited(_subscription?.cancel());

  /// Awaited, after `onUnmount`.
  @override
  Future<void> dispose() async => api.closeSession();
}

AsyncControllerScope<C> is the same thing with a createController callback instead of a subclass.

The same PlayerController also fits inside a dependency tree unchanged — controllerDep('player', () => player = PlayerController(api: apiClient)) next to dep in the Dependencies section below, when what a screen needs is one branch of a larger tree rather than a scope of its own.

In depth: the topic AsyncControllerScope.

LiteScope

Scope without the dependency container: the state is created without an async dependency phase, and still gets the full scope lifecycle — initStateAsync, disposeStateAsync, notifyDependents, close, scopeKey, and waiting for child scopes. A good fit for per-screen state that owns disposable objects.

final class ScreenScope extends LiteScope<ScreenScope, ScreenScopeState> {
  const ScreenScope({super.key, super.scopeKey});

  /// Shown on the first frames, and while waiting for [scopeKey]. Returning
  /// `null` here requires overriding [buildOnProgress].
  @override
  Widget? buildOnWaiting(BuildContext context) => const SizedBox.shrink();

  @override
  ScreenScopeState createState() => ScreenScopeState();

  static ScreenScopeState of(BuildContext context) =>
      LiteScope.of<ScreenScope, ScreenScopeState>(context);
}

final class ScreenScopeState
    extends LiteScopeState<ScreenScope, ScreenScopeState> {
  final controller = ScrollController();

  /// Awaited before the scope leaves the tree.
  @override
  Future<void> disposeStateAsync() async => controller.dispose();

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) =>
      ListView(controller: controller, children: const [Text('item')]);
}

Every family, this one and the full Scope below, is demonstrated side by side with a live log of each lifecycle call in the scopo_demo app.

In depth: the topic LiteScope.

Scope: the full family

The largest of them, and the one the others are cut down from. It has three parts:

1. the scope widget (Scope) — its constructor parameters are the scope parameters;
2. a dependency container (ScopeDependencies) — initialized asynchronously before the state is created;
3. a state (ScopeState) — the same as State of a StatefulWidget, but with direct access to the dependencies.

1. Dependencies

Implement ScopeDependencies and initialize it with a stream generator: this is what lets the scope report progress and cancel a half-finished initialization when the widget is removed from the tree.

final class AppDependencies implements ScopeDependencies {
  final SharedPreferences sharedPreferences;

  AppDependencies({required this.sharedPreferences});

  static Stream<ScopeInitState<String, AppDependencies>> init() async* {
    yield ScopeProgress('Initializing storage…');
    final sharedPreferences = await SharedPreferences.getInstance();

    yield ScopeReady(AppDependencies(sharedPreferences: sharedPreferences));
  }

  /// Lets go of whatever cannot wait for the asynchronous teardown. Runs
  /// once and always before `dispose`, whether the scope left the tree or
  /// was closed with `close()`.
  @override
  void onUnmount() {}

  /// Called after the state has been disposed of. May be asynchronous.
  @override
  Future<void> dispose() async {}
}

2. State

Extend ScopeState. The dependencies are ready by the time initState runs. notifyDependents updates the subscribed descendants without rebuilding the state's own subtree.

The two halves are separate on purpose, and nothing here disables setState — a scope state is an ordinary State and keeps it. Which one to call follows from who has to see the change:

what has to update	call
descendants subscribed with select / selectParam	notifyDependents()
the widgets the state's own build returns	setState()
both	both

Bumping a field and calling notifyDependents() alone is the mistake worth naming: the subscribers see the new value and the state's own build does not run, so anything it draws from that field stays as it was.

final class AppState extends ScopeState<App, AppDependencies, AppState> {
  late int _counter;
  int get counter => _counter;

  @override
  void initState() {
    super.initState();
    _counter = dependencies.sharedPreferences.getInt('counter') ?? 0;
  }

  Future<void> increment() async {
    _counter++;
    notifyDependents();
    await dependencies.sharedPreferences.setInt('counter', _counter);
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) => const HomeScreen();
}

3. The scope widget

Extend Scope and provide initDependencies, createState, and the widgets for the initializing and error branches. wrapState wraps the ready branch only, so widgets shared by all branches (such as MaterialApp) are usually created in each builder.

final class App extends Scope<App, AppDependencies, AppState> {
  final String title;

  const App({super.key, required this.title});

  @override
  Stream<ScopeInitState<String, AppDependencies>> initDependencies(
    BuildContext context,
  ) =>
      AppDependencies.init();

  @override
  AppState createState() => AppState();

  @override
  Widget buildOnProgress(
    BuildContext context,
    covariant String? progress,
  ) =>
      MaterialApp(home: Scaffold(body: Center(child: Text(progress ?? ''))));

  @override
  Widget buildOnError(
    BuildContext context,
    Object error,
    StackTrace stackTrace,
    covariant String? progress,
  ) =>
      MaterialApp(home: Scaffold(body: Center(child: Text('$error'))));

  /// Widgets placed between [App] and [AppState] in the ready branch.
  @override
  Widget wrapState(
    BuildContext context,
    AppDependencies dependencies,
    Widget child,
  ) =>
      MaterialApp(title: title, home: child);

  /// Access helpers for descendants.
  static AppState of(BuildContext context) =>
      Scope.of<App, AppDependencies, AppState>(context);

  static V select<V>(
    BuildContext context,
    V Function(AppState state) selector,
  ) =>
      Scope.select<App, AppDependencies, AppState, V>(context, selector);

  static V selectParam<V>(
    BuildContext context,
    V Function(App widget) selector,
  ) =>
      Scope.selectParam<App, AppDependencies, AppState, V>(context, selector);
}

4. Access from descendants

Scope.of never subscribes — use it for calling methods. To rebuild on changes, subscribe to a single value with select (state) or selectParam (scope parameters). Scope.paramsOf and Scope.maybeOf are available too.

class HomeScreen extends StatelessWidget {
  const HomeScreen({super.key});

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    // Subscribes to a single value: rebuilt only when `counter` changes.
    final counter = App.select(context, (state) => state.counter);

    // Subscribes to a scope parameter.
    final title = App.selectParam(context, (widget) => widget.title);

    return Scaffold(
      appBar: AppBar(title: Text(title)),
      body: Center(child: Text('$counter')),
      floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton(
        // Reads the state without subscribing to it.
        onPressed: () => App.of(context).increment(),
        child: const Icon(Icons.add),
      ),
    );
  }
}

In depth: the topic Scope.

Accessors: the type arguments, once

The section above gives App five static wrappers, and every one of them names the same three types again:

static V select<V>(BuildContext context, V Function(AppState state) selector) =>
    Scope.select<App, AppDependencies, AppState, V>(context, selector);

That is fifteen lines per scope, and a scope is something an application has dozens of. The triple cannot be inferred — Dart has no way to read the type arguments of a supertype at the call site — so it has to be written down somewhere. The only question is how many times.

Once:

final class App extends Scope<App, AppDependencies, AppState> {
  static const access = ScopeAccess<App, AppDependencies, AppState>();
  …
}

// and from a descendant:
final counter = App.access.select(context, (state) => state.counter);
final title = App.access.selectParam(context, (widget) => widget.title);
App.access.of(context).increment();

The accessor holds nothing and decides nothing: each of its methods is the static of the same name with the arguments already filled in. Every family has one, and takes the type arguments that family takes:

family	accessor
ScopeWidgetBase	ScopeWidgetAccess<W>
ScopeModelBase	ScopeModelAccess<W, M>
ScopeNotifierBase	ScopeNotifierAccess<W, M>
AsyncScopeBase	AsyncScopeAccess<W>
AsyncDataScopeBase	AsyncDataScopeAccess<W, T>
AsyncControllerScopeBase	AsyncControllerScopeAccess<W, C>
LiteScope	LiteScopeAccess<W, S>
Scope	ScopeAccess<W, D, S>

What it costs: one more step at every call site — App.access.select(…) rather than App.select(…). Nothing else changes, and the statics stay exactly where they were: a scope that wants its accessors under names of its own, or one that exposes only two of the five, still writes them by hand. The accessor is the shortest way to have all of them, not the only way to have any.

Or let a template write the wrappers. The editor templates that ship with the package take the other route: their skeletons write the five statics out in full, so a descendant reads App.select(context, …) and nothing had to be typed. Use the accessor when you write the scope by hand, a template when you do not.

Installing them. They ship with the package, so they are already on the machine. For VS Code — and Cursor, Windsurf and Antigravity, which share the format — copy the snippets into the project:

mkdir -p .vscode
cp "$(find ~/.pub-cache/hosted/pub.dev -maxdepth 1 -name 'scopo-*' | sort | tail -1)"/ide/scopo.code-snippets .vscode/

For IntelliJ IDEA and Android Studio there is no import button on the Live Templates page any more. The file goes into the configuration directory of the IDE, under templates/, named after the group it declares — the XML says scopo, so the file is scopo.xml — and the IDE is restarted:

# Android Studio on macOS; for IntelliJ IDEA the directory is
# ~/Library/Application Support/JetBrains/<product>/
DIR=~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/AndroidStudio<version>/templates
mkdir -p "$DIR"
cp "$(find ~/.pub-cache/hosted/pub.dev -maxdepth 1 -name 'scopo-*' | sort | tail -1)"/ide/scopo-live-templates.xml "$DIR/scopo.xml"

The group then appears under Settings → Editor → Live Templates.

All eleven are listed in ide/README.md, and the topic base says how templates and accessors relate.

scopeKey

scopeKey serializes scopes that must not overlap: a new scope with the same key waits until the previous one has finished disposing of its dependencies. It requires an AsyncScopeCoordinator above the scopes that use it — the most universal place is above MaterialApp:

AsyncScopeCoordinator(child: MaterialApp(home: HomeScreen()))

Each coordinator scopes scopeKey to its own subtree: two scopes with the same key under different coordinators never wait for one another, and it is always the nearest coordinator above a scope that serves it. The queues belong to the coordinator's element, so serialization holds only for as long as that element does: replacing the coordinator itself — a different ValueKey, a different position in the tree — throws its queues away along with it, which is why it belongs above everything that can be replaced.

A coordinator is also the wait root for the scopes in its subtree that have no scope above them, so AsyncScopeCoordinator.waitForChildren(context) is the way to await those top-level scopes — for example before tearing down a test or finishing a splash screen:

await AsyncScopeCoordinator.waitForChildren(context);

It awaits the scopes registered at the moment of the call, and, like every other wait in the package, it is bounded — by a timeout when one is passed, by ScopeConfig.defaultWaitForChildrenTimeout otherwise. An expiry is not an error the caller has to handle: the future completes normally and the TimeoutException is reported through FlutterError.reportError, unless an onTimeout callback is given.

Observing and configuration

The package says nothing until ScopeConfig.observer is assigned. A ScopeObserver has one hook per lifecycle event — onInit, onProgress, onReady, onCancelled, onDispose, onDisposed, onError, onTimeout, onTrace — all of them empty, so a subclass overrides only what it needs. ScopePrintObserver comes with the package and writes a line per event.

void main() {
  ScopeConfig.observer = const ScopePrintObserver();

  // How long a scope waits for its `scopeKey` and for its children to be
  // disposed of (3 seconds each by default; `null` means no timeout).
  ScopeConfig.defaultScopeKeyTimeout = const Duration(seconds: 5);
  ScopeConfig.defaultWaitForChildrenTimeout = null;

  runApp(const App(title: 'scopo'));
}

ScopeConfig.pauseAfterInitializationEnabled = false disables the artificial pauseAfterInitialization delays — useful in tests.

Testing

The same observer that prints in an app records in a test, which turns the lifecycle into a value to assert on — compare the whole list at once and a missing event is caught along with one too many:

late RecordingObserver observer;

setUp(() {
  observer = RecordingObserver();
  ScopeConfig.observer = observer;
  ScopeConfig.pauseAfterInitializationEnabled = false;
});

tearDown(() {
  ScopeConfig.observer = null;
  ScopeConfig.reset();
});

Three things worth knowing before the first test:

• ScopeConfig.reset() does not clear the observer. One left behind goes on recording into the next test's list, so clear it explicitly, as above.
• Tag the scopes you assert on. An untagged scope labels itself with a short hash that differs on every run.
• The teardown is asynchronous, and pumpAndSettle does not wait it out. It moves the fake clock; a disposal that awaits real work — or one of the four timeouts, which are measured on real time on purpose — is still running when the test ends. Wait for the event you care about instead of assuming the frame settled it.

In depth: the topic debug.

Nested navigation

Every route in a Flutter app is normally built by the one Navigator at the top of it, and that Navigator sits above every scope in the tree — so Navigator.push, showDialog and showModalBottomSheet all build the new route beside the screen that opened it, not under it. Nothing the screen put above its own content is among that route's ancestors, a scope included: a dialog opened from inside one, or a screen pushed from one, cannot read it.

navigation_node is a nested Navigator put under the scope instead. Navigator.push and showModalBottomSheet already default to the nearest navigator, so pushing or opening a sheet through the node needs nothing extra. showDialog defaults to the root navigator, not the nearest one — pass useRootNavigator: false and it reaches the node too. Either way the route is now built inside the scope's subtree rather than beside it, and a dialog, a bottom sheet or a pushed screen opened from under the node reads the same scope the screen that opened it does.

It shipped inside scopo up to 0.10.0; it depends on nothing but Flutter, which is why it left. Add the package, change one import, and the pair works exactly as it did — the navigation_node tab of scopo_demo opens the same dialog, sheet and screen from a scope with and without a node, side by side.

Also in the box

• ProgressIterator — step counting (1/3, 2/3, …) for initialization progress.
• ScreenshotReplacer — renders a subtree once, then replaces it with the captured image; used to keep the last frame while a scope is closing. A subtree that is never painted cannot be captured, so the attempt is bounded by ScreenshotReplacer.maxRetries, after which the subtree is taken away with nothing in the picture's place — waiting for the screenshot is how the scope waits to let go of what that subtree holds, so leaving it standing would defeat the wait.

Examples

• minimal — one scope, SharedPreferences initialized asynchronously, loading and error screens, a counter. Minimal in files rather than in lines: it walks through the full Scope, commented step by step. For the smallest thing that works, see the table of families above.
• scopo_demo — a demo of every scope family with a console showing the lifecycle events, plus nested scopes, scopeKey, deferred closing, and navigation nodes: ten tabs.

Documentation

• API reference
• pub.dev package page
• changelog

One topic per family, each covering what the API reference cannot: the order things happen in, the trade-offs, and the traps. The links below go to the Topics of the API reference above, which always show the latest release; the same pages live in the repository as doc/*.md, which is where to read them alongside the source of a version you have pinned.

topic	start here for
base	of, select, listen, and how a scope is found at all
ScopeWidget	the widget/element pair every family extends
ScopeModel	owning a plain object
ScopeNotifier	owning a Listenable
AsyncScope	the asynchronous lifecycle, scopeKey, the coordinator
AsyncDataScope	the same, producing a value
AsyncControllerScope	the same, where that value is a controller with a lifecycle of its own
LiteScope	a state class with that lifecycle, and close()
Scope	the full family: dependencies, state, four branches
debug	the observer, timeouts, and the test setup
utils	the helpers that come with the package