ai_grid 0.4.0

An intelligent DataGrid for Flutter with native AI assistant and MCP skill control.

AI Grid (ai_grid)

AI Grid is an intelligent, high-performance DataGrid for Flutter that bridges enterprise tabular virtualization with native AI assistant controls and Model Context Protocol (MCP) tool execution.

• Grid Engine: Powered by fitgrid_table — measuring your content instead of guessing widths, painting cells via direct canvas rendering (~3ms frame times on 1M rows), sticky hierarchical row grouping, isolate multi-sort, and summary footers.
• AI Agent & Tool Orchestration: Powered by dart_mcp_core — exposing structured MCP local tools for real-time schema introspection, precise in-engine math calculations, multi-column filtering, and natural language table operations.
• Coding Agent Ready: Includes a standardized SKILL.md compatible with Claude Code, Antigravity, Cursor, Windsurf, Roo, and other autonomous coding agents for instant API discovery and integration.

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✨ Key Features

1. ⚡ High-Performance Canvas DataGrid

• Direct Canvas Rendering: Cells are painted directly to the canvas rather than building hundreds of individual widgets, delivering consistent 60/120 FPS scrolling even over 1,000,000 rows.
• Content-Based Auto-Sizing: Automatically measures content to fit columns without manual pixel width calculations.
• Hierarchical Row Grouping: Drag-and-drop column headers or trigger grouping programmatically with aggregate rollups.
• Multi-Column Sorting: Prioritized multi-column sorting with background isolate execution for massive datasets.
• Inline Column Filtering: Individual column filter row supporting contains, equals, starts with, ends with, and comparison operators.
• Aggregate Footers: Auto-computed sum, average, min, max, and count summary rows.

2. ✍️ DevExtreme-Style DataGrid Editing (Cell, Row & Form Modes)

Modal Form Editing Dialog	Inline Row Editing

• Three Editing Modes (AiGridEditMode):
  • cell: Direct in-place cell editing.
  • row: Inline row editing with committed draft states, full-cell inputs, and standard Material action icons (check to save, close to cancel, edit_outlined, delete_outline).
  • form: Modal Material 3 popup form dialog editing all editable fields in a structured layout.
• Pinned Action Column (AiGridActionColumnPosition): Automatically pinned to left or right with compact, overflow-free action buttons.
• Modal Popup Form (AiGridFormDialog):
  • Configurable layouts via AiGridFormLayout: row (vertical scrollable list), wrap (horizontal flow), grid (multi-column grid), or custom (formBuilder).
  • Standard Material 3 controls for text, numbers, currency, date & datetime pickers, dropdown selects, and toggle switches.
  • Form field ordering driven by editorIndex.
• Column-Level Editing Rules (AiGridColumn):
  • editable: Explicitly enable or disable editing per column.
  • required: Mandatory field validation with inline error border indicators and tooltips.
  • editorType: Control type (text, number, currency, date, dateTime, select, boolean).
  • validator: Field-level validation callbacks.
  • editorBuilder: Custom inline or form field widget builders.
• Complete CRUD Lifecycle & Validation Pipeline:
  • Vertical Validation Errors Dialog: Summary dialog on save listing all errors vertically.
  • Delete Confirmation Dialog: Built-in confirmation before deleting rows (beforeDelete).
  • Persistence hooks via commit, afterSave, and afterDelete.

3. 📊 DevExtreme-Style Dynamic Pivot Grid & Side-by-Side Chart

Convert any active table into an enterprise multi-dimensional Pivot Grid on the fly with real-time aggregated cross-tabulations and side-by-side synchronized charts.

• Field Chooser Dialog (AiGridPivotChooserDialog):
  • Visual drop zones for Row Fields (vertical breakdown), Column Fields (horizontal cross-tabulation), and Data / Measures (metrics to aggregate).
  • Smart column heuristic separating true metrics (Sales, Quantity, Profit) from dimensions (Category, Region) and primary keys (OrderID, PostalCode).
  • Aggregation functions: Sum, Average, Count, Min, Max.
  • One-click presets matching DevExtreme showcase designs (e.g. Category × Region, Segment × Ship Mode).
• DevExtreme-Style Banded Split Column Headers:
  • Automatically creates unified top-level header bands across multi-column breakdowns (e.g. Consumer / Central spanning over Sales (Sum) and Discount (Average)).
  • Row dimension headers (Order ID, Category) cleanly span the full double-height header vertically.
• Hierarchical Row Tree Grouping:
  • Multiple row dimensions (e.g. Category → SubCategory) automatically generate collapsible tree-style grouping with group subtotals.
• Moveable Split-Panel Canvas Chart:
  • Side-by-side interactive chart (AiGridPivotChart) supporting groupedBar, column, line, and pie visualization.
  • Interactive draggable divider with 1:1 absolute mouse tracking and theme-reactive highlight feedback.
  • Smart Top-6 series and Top-10 categories data filtering to prevent legend overflow on large datasets.
• AI Assistant & Natural Language Control:
  • Run prompts like "create pivot table, rows category and subcategory, columns segment, data fields sales (sum), profit (sum)".
  • Deactivate or restore standard view anytime via toolbar button or "reset pivot table".

4. 🧠 Native AI Assistant & Model Context Protocol (MCP)

• Embedded AI Chat: Conversational interface that understands your tabular schema, column types, and data distributions.
• Hallucination-Free Math Engine (grid_calculate): Calculations (sum, average, minimum, maximum, count, median) are executed strictly inside the Dart engine—ensuring 100% mathematical accuracy without LLM arithmetic errors.
• Multi-Column AND Filtering: Seamlessly parses and applies complex queries across multiple columns simultaneously (e.g. "filter region East and category Furniture").
• Negative Filtering: Supports not equals and does not contain operators (e.g. "Category not Furniture", "exclude South").
• Context-Aware Suggestions: Proactive quick-action chips generated dynamically based on active columns.
• LLM Provider Agnostic: Connects seamlessly with Mistral, OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, Ollama, custom OpenAI-compatible endpoints, or built-in local heuristics.

5. 💾 Save & Restore Grid Settings (Auto-Save)

• Full State Persistence: Export or restore grid configuration including:
  • visibleColumns & hiddenColumns
  • groupColumns (hierarchical row grouping)
  • sorts (multi-column priority, field, direction)
  • filters (field, operator, target value)
  • showColumnFilterRow (inline filter header visibility)
• Automatic Layout Restoration (autoSave): Pass autoSave: true and a persistenceKey to automatically persist all user layout changes and restore them on startup.
• JSON Import/Export: Export settings to JSON string or save to file via controller.exportSettingsJson() and restore via controller.restoreSettingsJson(str).
• In-Memory Cache: Built-in AiGridSettingsStorage handles session-level caching and retrieval.

6. 🌐 Dynamic AI DataGrid (Files, Web GET & Clipboard Ingestion)

Instantly generate, inspect, and interact with dynamic DataGrids from external files, public web APIs, or clipboard content without hardcoding data models:

Dynamic Grid from Clipboard	Create Table from PDF Attachment

• Multi-Source Ingestion:
  • Files: Pick .csv, .tsv, .json, .md (Markdown pipe tables), .txt, .pdf, or .docx files. Tabular structures and field types (number, text, boolean, date, currency) are automatically detected and parsed.
  • Public Web APIs (GET): Ingest JSON endpoints or HTML tables directly from HTTP URLs. Data is fetched on demand and maintained in read-only mode for safety.
  • System Clipboard: Paste tables directly with Ctrl+V or the clipboard button. Automatically extracts markdown tables, delimited text, or JSON structures. Multimodal support handles clipboard images and dropped files.
• Persistent Data Models & Bundles:
  • Schemas are modeled as YAML definitions ($name_mdl.yaml) and data rows are saved as JSON ($name.json) in SharedPreferences.
  • Export / Import Bundles: Export complete dynamic dataset bundles (.agrid.yaml) containing both the column metadata model and dataset rows. Easily import bundles across devices.
  • In-Place DevExtreme Write-Back: Edits made in cell, row, or modal form modes are automatically committed back to SharedPreferences storage.
• 6 Built-in Dynamic MCP Tools:
  • grid_create_dynamic_datasource: Creates, validates, and activates a dynamic dataset from structured rows or inferred columns.
  • grid_list_datasources: Lists all saved dynamic datasets, row counts, origins, and active status.
  • grid_load_datasource: Switches the active DataGrid view to any stored dataset.
  • grid_delete_datasource: Deletes a saved dynamic dataset and its associated YAML model.
  • grid_fetch_web_data: Fetches, previews, and inspects web data before ingestion.
  • grid_export_datasource_yaml: Exports the active or specified dataset as a portable YAML bundle string.
• Generic Columns Editor Dialogs:
  • Full-Table Columns Editor (AiGridColumnsEditorDialog): Self-hosting, nested AiGrid dialog for modifying all columns in the active table. Modify column captions, data types (number, text, date, datetime), editable permissions, required validation flags, widths, max widths, editor types, and reorder or delete columns.
  • Single Column Editor (AiGridColumnEditorDialog): Quick per-column editor accessible via header context menus for fast schema adjustments.
  • Changes immediately update the live grid and persist back to storage YAML models.
• Read-Only Datatable Protection & Editor Suppression:
  • Tables fetched from web endpoints or loaded with isReadonly: true strictly enforce read-only semantics.
  • Actions Column Suppressed: The pinned __actions__ column containing edit pencil, delete trash, and check/cancel buttons is hidden.
  • Toolbar Controls Suppressed: The + (Add Record) and Columns Editor buttons are hidden from the toolbar.
  • Inline Edit Triggers Blocked: In-cell and double-click row edit triggers are locked, preventing editing states from activating.
  • CRUD Operations Guarded: Invocations to startEdit, startAdd, showEditDialog, saveEdit, and deleteRow safely early-exit.
• Option C: Hybrid Composable Architecture:
  • Keeps ai_grid core lightweight with zero native FFI dependencies for full dart2wasm safety.
  • Provides a pluggable assistantBuilder slot on AiGrid for developers who want to drop in external AI chat interfaces such as FlutterUiMcp or McpPlayground.
• Runnable Example: See example/lib/dynamic_ai_grid_example.dart.

7. 📋 Copy-to-Clipboard in AI Assistant

• Prompt Bubbles: 1-tap copy button on every user message bubble.
• AI Responses: Copy button in the header of each assistant response card to copy the full AI response and execution summary directly to the system clipboard.

8. 📱 Responsive Desktop & Mobile Layouts

• Desktop Mode (≥ 620px):
  • Floatable, moveable, and resizable AI Assistant window powered by draggable_overlay_window.
  • 8-directional edge/corner resizing, drag-by-header, minimize, maximize, and smooth focus management.
• Mobile Mode (< 620px):
  • Dynamic, non-overflowing toolbar with action menus collapsed into a sleek PopupMenuButton dropdown.
  • Auto-flexing search bar that adapts to any screen width without pixel overflows.
  • Instant 1-tap Mode Switcher tab bar ([ 📊 Data Grid ] | [ ✨ AI Assistant ]).
  • Full-screen mobile assistant view with quick [← Back to Data Grid] navigation.

9. ↔️ Interactive Column Resizing & Width Policies

• Drag-to-Resize: Hovering between column headers reveals draggable divider handles to interactively adjust column widths.
• Auto-Fit on Double-Click: Double-clicking any column divider handle or choosing "Size to fit" in the column menu auto-fits the column to its actual cell content.
• Flexible Sizing Policies: Configure columnWidth with any policy from fitgrid_table:
  • FitGridColumnWidth.auto(min: 80, max: 300) — dynamic content-based measurement.
  • FitGridColumnWidth.fixed(120) — pinned exact pixel width.
  • FitGridColumnWidth.flex(1, min: 140) — proportional flex share of remaining grid width.
  • FitGridColumnWidth.fitHeader(min: 44) — sized strictly to the header label.
• Layout Persistence: Custom column widths automatically persist across app restarts when autoSave: true is enabled.

10. 📤 Fast & Pure-Dart Excel (.xlsx) Export

• One-click Export to Excel directly accessible via the toolbar download button, mobile menu, or natural language AI command (export):
  • Native Save As Dialog: Opens the platform's native "Save As..." dialog (FileSaver.instance.saveAs) allowing the user to select the destination folder and filename across Web, Desktop (Windows, macOS, Linux), and Mobile (Android, iOS).
  • Pure-Dart Excel Engine: Generates .xlsx workbooks directly in Dart with zero C/C++ native dependencies or platform channels.
  • Direct Programmatic API: Trigger export programmatically anytime via controller.export().

11. 📄 Pagination & Partial Data Load (Client-Side & Server-Side)

• Client-Side Pagination: Simple opt-in via enablePagination: true and pageSize: 25, rendering an interactive page-navigation footer with total row counts and page controls.
• Server-Side Partial Data Load (LazyAiGridDataSource):
  • Only requests and loads the slice of records for the active page from your backend or REST/GraphQL API.
  • Dynamically passes current page, page size, active column sorting, and active filter criteria to your fetch callback.

12. 🌐 WebAssembly (WASM) Compatible

• Fully verified with Flutter WebAssembly (dart2wasm).
• Zero direct dependencies on legacy dart:html.
• Native filesystem operations are cleanly isolated behind conditional imports, ensuring zero runtime or compile-time breakages in browser WASM environments.

13. 🎨 Modern Adaptive Theming

• Harmonious styling that automatically reflects the parent application's Material 3 ThemeData across Light and Dark modes.

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🛠️ MCP Tool Reference

ai_grid exposes 25 specialized MCP tools through AiGridSkill:

Tool Name	Description
grid_get_schema	Returns column field names, titles, types, and capability flags.
grid_get_state	Returns active grouping, active filters, sorting, search query, row count, and visibility.
grid_get_sample_data	Retrieves real sample rows (1–10 rows) for contextual reasoning.
grid_calculate	Calculates exact metrics (sum, average, min, max, count, median) in Dart without LLM math errors.
grid_set_filter	Applies single or multi-column filters joined by AND, including negative operators.
grid_clear_filters	Clears all or specified column filters.
grid_sort	Applies single or multi-column sorting with ascending/descending directions.
grid_group	Sets hierarchical row grouping fields.
grid_set_column_visibility	Shows or hides specific columns.
grid_search	Applies global tabular text search.
export	Exports table data to Excel (.xlsx) using FitGrid and opens the native Save As... dialog to select output directory and filename. Works on Web, Desktop, and Mobile.
grid_export	Exports grid data to XLSX, CSV, TSV, or JSON and downloads/saves the file.
grid_go_to_page	Navigates pagination to a specific page or relative direction ("next", "previous", "first", "last").
grid_get_pagination_status	Returns active pagination status (current page, total pages, page size, isPaginated).
grid_export_settings	Exports current grid settings (visible columns, grouping, sorts, filters) as a JSON string.
grid_restore_settings	Restores grid settings from a JSON string or settings object.
grid_create_pivot_table	Transforms the table into an aggregated Pivot Table on the fly with optional side-by-side Chart.
grid_reset_pivot_table	Deactivates pivot mode and restores the standard grid view, columns, and groupings.
grid_create_dynamic_datasource	Creates, persists, and activates a dynamic DataGrid dataset from structured rows or inferred columns.
grid_list_datasources	Lists all saved dynamic datasets, their row counts, origins, and active status.
grid_load_datasource	Loads a saved dynamic DataGrid dataset by name into the interactive grid.
grid_delete_datasource	Deletes a dynamic dataset and its associated YAML model from storage.
grid_fetch_web_data	Fetches, inspects, and previews tabular data from a public HTTP GET URL.
grid_export_datasource_yaml	Exports a dynamic dataset package (model and data rows) as a YAML formatted string.
grid_reset	Resets grouping, filters, sorting, search, and restores all column visibility.

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🚀 Getting Started

Installation

Add ai_grid to your pubspec.yaml:

dependencies:
  ai_grid: ^0.4.0
  material_ui: ^1.4.0

(Note for local development: If using local checkouts, path dependencies can be specified via dependency overrides).

Basic Usage

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:ai_grid/ai_grid.dart';

void main() => runApp(const MyApp());

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

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return MaterialApp(
      theme: ThemeData.light(useMaterial3: true),
      darkTheme: ThemeData.dark(useMaterial3: true),
      home: const SalesGridPage(),
    );
  }
}

class SalesGridPage extends StatefulWidget {
  const SalesGridPage({super.key});

  @override
  State<SalesGridPage> createState() => _SalesGridPageState();
}

class _SalesGridPageState extends State<SalesGridPage> {
  late final AiGridController _controller;
  late final LocalAiGridDataSource _dataSource;

  @override
  void initState() {
    super.initState();
    _controller = AiGridController();
    _controller.editingOptions = const AiGridEditingOptions(
      enabled: true,
      mode: AiGridEditMode.row, // .cell, .row, or .form
      allowAdding: true,
      allowUpdating: true,
      allowDeleting: true,
    );

    final columns = [
      const AiGridColumn(
        field: 'orderId',
        title: 'Order ID',
        type: AiGridColumnType.text,
        aggregateType: AiGridAggregateType.count,
        editable: true,
        width: 140,
      ),
      const AiGridColumn(
        field: 'customer',
        title: 'Customer Name',
        type: AiGridColumnType.text,
        editable: true,
        width: 180,
      ),
      const AiGridColumn(
        field: 'category',
        title: 'Category',
        type: AiGridColumnType.select,
        selectOptions: ['Furniture', 'Technology', 'Office Supplies'],
        editable: true,
        width: 140,
      ),
      const AiGridColumn(
        field: 'sales',
        title: 'Sales Amount',
        type: AiGridColumnType.currency,
        aggregateType: AiGridAggregateType.sum,
        editable: false,
        width: 140,
      ),
    ];

    final sampleData = [
      {'orderId': 'ORD-001', 'customer': 'Claire Gute', 'category': 'Furniture', 'sales': 261.96},
      {'orderId': 'ORD-002', 'customer': 'Brosina Hoffman', 'category': 'Technology', 'sales': 731.94},
      {'orderId': 'ORD-003', 'customer': 'Darrin Van Huff', 'category': 'Office Supplies', 'sales': 14.62},
    ];

    _dataSource = LocalAiGridDataSource(
      initialData: sampleData,
      columns: columns,
    );
  }

  @override
  void dispose() {
    _controller.dispose();
    super.dispose();
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      appBar: AppBar(title: const Text('Enterprise Sales Data')),
      body: AiGrid(
        dataSource: _dataSource,
        controller: _controller,
        enableAiAssistant: true,
      ),
    );
  }
}

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🤖 Configuring the AI Assistant

Configure any LLM provider via .env or in code:

// Option 1: Load from .env
final config = await AiGridConfig.fromEnv();

// Option 2: Programmatic configuration
final config = AiGridConfig(
  llmConfig: LlmConfig(
    provider: LlmProvider.mistral, // or openai, anthropic, gemini, ollama
    apiKey: 'your_api_key_here',
    model: 'mistral-large-latest',
  ),
);

AiGrid(
  dataSource: dataSource,
  aiConfig: config,
);

Supported .env Variables

Create a .env file in the root of your application or asset bundle:

# Provider: mistral | openai | anthropic (or claude) | gemini | ollama | openai_compatible
LLM_PROVIDER=mistral

# Model identifier
LLM_MODEL=mistral-medium-latest

# API Authentication Key (Optional for local Ollama / LM Studio)
LLM_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

# Base URL (Required for openai_compatible, custom proxy, or Ollama)
LLM_URL=https://api.mistral.ai/v1

Provider Configuration Examples

1. Mistral AI

LLM_PROVIDER=mistral
LLM_MODEL=mistral-medium-latest
LLM_API_KEY=your_mistral_api_key
LLM_URL=https://api.mistral.ai/v1

2. OpenAI

LLM_PROVIDER=openai
LLM_MODEL=gpt-4o-mini
LLM_API_KEY=sk-...

3. Anthropic Claude

LLM_PROVIDER=anthropic
LLM_MODEL=claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022
LLM_API_KEY=sk-ant-...

4. Google Gemini

LLM_PROVIDER=gemini
LLM_MODEL=gemini-1.5-flash
LLM_API_KEY=AIzaSy...

5. Ollama (Local on localhost:11434)

LLM_PROVIDER=ollama
LLM_MODEL=llama3.1
LLM_URL=http://localhost:11434

6. Custom OpenAI-Compatible (OpenRouter, Groq, Together, LM Studio, vLLM)

LLM_PROVIDER=openai_compatible
LLM_MODEL=meta-llama/llama-3.1-70b-instruct
LLM_API_KEY=your_custom_key_or_empty
LLM_URL=https://openrouter.ai/api/v1

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📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License — see the LICENSE file for details.