📦 SmartPub - Flutter Dependency Analyzer

The smart way to manage Flutter dependencies.

SmartPub is a CLI tool for Flutter & Dart projects that helps you identify unused dependencies and organize your pubspec.yaml in a clean, predictable way.

Over time, Flutter projects often accumulate unused or poorly organized packages. SmartPub makes it easy to preview, clean, and categorize dependencies without risking accidental changes.

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🤔 Why SmartPub?

In real Flutter projects:

• Unused packages increase build time and maintenance cost
• pubspec.yaml becomes hard to read as dependencies grow
• Developers hesitate to clean dependencies due to fear of breaking the app

SmartPub solves this by:

• Detecting unused dependencies safely
• Providing preview-first workflows
• Offering interactive modes before making changes
• Keeping actions explicit and predictable

No magic. No hidden behavior.

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✨ What SmartPub Does

SmartPub focuses on three core features:

1️⃣ Unused & Misplaced Dependency Detection

• Scans your project source code (lib/, test/, bin/, tool/)
• Detects unused dependencies declared in pubspec.yaml
• Identifies misplaced dependencies:
  • Over-promoted: Packages only used in tests/tools but declared under dependencies.
  • Under-promoted: Packages used in core library files but declared under dev_dependencies (which can break downstream consumers).
• Allows preview before removal or relocation
• Supports interactive confirmation

2️⃣ Dependency Categorization (beta)

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• Groups dependencies into logical categories
• Uses known ecosystem data
• Supports preview, auto-apply, and interactive overrides

3️⃣ Persistent Configuration (smartpub.yaml)

• Exclude specific directories/files from scanning (using globs like lib/generated/**)
• Ignore specific packages from analysis (e.g. code generators like build_runner)
• Fine-tune active checking parameters (toggling unused or promotions checks)

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🚀 Installation & Setup

1. Install Globally

Activate SmartPub globally using Dart's pub tool:

dart pub global activate smartpub

Make sure Dart’s global bin is added to your system's PATH.

2. Initialize Configuration

Initialize the configuration file smartpub.yaml in your project root directory:

smartpub init

This generates a starter configuration template with detailed comments to customize rules for your project (ignored packages, path exclusions, etc.).

3. Run Analysis

Run SmartPub to preview dependency violations:

smartpub check

(Or simply run smartpub as a shortcut).

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🧭 Usage Overview

smartpub [command] [options]

If no command is provided, SmartPub runs in preview mode (equivalent to smartpub check).

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🔍 Commands

check (default)

Preview unused dependencies (read-only).

smartpub
smartpub check

✔ No files are modified.

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clean

Remove unused dependencies.

smartpub clean

Interactive cleanup

Review each removal before applying changes.

smartpub clean --interactive

A backup of pubspec.yaml is created automatically.

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group

Preview dependency categorization.

smartpub group

Apply categorization automatically

smartpub group --apply

Interactive categorization

Override suggested categories interactively.

smartpub group --interactive

This is useful when you want full control over how packages are grouped.

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init

Initialize a default, fully documented smartpub.yaml configuration file.

smartpub init

• Prevents overwriting if smartpub.yaml already exists.

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restore

Restore pubspec.yaml from the last backup.

smartpub restore

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update

Update SmartPub to the latest version.

smartpub update

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⚙️ Options

--apply                  Apply changes automatically
--interactive            Review and confirm changes interactively
--no-fail-on-violations  Exit 0 even when violations are found (warn-only mode)
--no-color               Disable colored output (CI-friendly)
--config <path>          Path to custom config file (default: smartpub.yaml)
-h, --help               Show help information
-v, --version            Show version information

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🏗️ CI Integration & Exit Codes

SmartPub returns standard exit codes so you can use it as a blocking gate in your pipelines (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Bitrise).

Exit Code	Meaning
0	Success: No violations found (or they were successfully cleaned).
1	Violations Detected: Unused or misplaced dependencies found.
2	Tool Error: Missing pubspec.yaml, no backup exists, or parse error.
3	Invalid Arguments: Unknown flags or incompatible options passed.

Example GitHub Action (Fail on violations)

- name: Check for unused dependencies
  run: dart run smartpub check

Example CI Migration (Warn-only mode)

If you want to integrate SmartPub into CI but aren't ready to fail the build yet, use:

smartpub check --no-fail-on-violations

This will print all violations but safely exit 0.

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🧪 Typical Workflow

A safe and recommended workflow:

smartpub            # preview unused dependencies
smartpub clean      # remove unused dependencies
smartpub group      # preview categorization
smartpub group --interactive

This keeps changes intentional and reviewable.

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🛡️ Safety Guarantees

• SmartPub never modifies files without intent
• Preview is the default behavior
• Backups are created before changes
• Interactive mode is available for sensitive operations

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📦 Project Scope (Important)

SmartPub intentionally does not:

• Modify versions automatically
• Upgrade or downgrade dependencies
• Guess architectural intent

Its goal is clarity and cleanliness, not automation overload.

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📞 Support

• 🐛 GitHub
• 🐛 Report Issues
• 💡 Feature Requests

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Made with ❤️ by Vatsal Jaganwala