dart_minify 0.1.1

CLI for compressing Dart and Flutter source before sending it to AI agents.

dart_minify

dart_minify is a Dart/Flutter CLI that compresses source code before sending it to AI agents, then expands responses back into readable code.

It is designed for agent workflows where prompt size, cost, and latency matter.

What it does

• minify/expand: payload-based compression and round-trip recovery.
• stats: quick byte/token savings estimate.
• doctor: project sanity checks before running transforms.
• lossy-build/apply-lossy: build-runner workflow for project-side lossy output.

Why this exists

Agent context windows are limited and expensive. dart_minify helps by:

• removing comments and whitespace noise
• applying conservative renaming in aggressive lossy mode
• producing map/manifests so outputs can be expanded or safely applied

Real project example (Prism lib/, aggressive lossy build):

• Original: 3,407,823 bytes
• Minified: 2,203,323 bytes
• Saved: 1,204,500 bytes (35.35%)

Install

Global activate:

dart pub global activate dart_minify

Then run:

dart-minify --help

Local repository usage:

dart pub get
dart run bin/dart_minify.dart --help

Quickstart

1) Minify for agent context

dart run bin/dart_minify.dart minify \
  --project-root ../Prism \
  --mode mostly-lossless \
  --map-out /tmp/prism.map.json \
  ../Prism/lib > /tmp/prism.payload.txt

2) Expand agent output back to readable code

dart run bin/dart_minify.dart expand \
  --map-in /tmp/prism.map.json \
  --input /tmp/agent-response.txt > /tmp/prism.expanded.txt

3) Check savings first

dart run bin/dart_minify.dart stats \
  --project-root ../Prism \
  --mode mostly-lossless \
  ../Prism/lib

Modes

• mostly-lossless
  • strips comments and compresses whitespace
  • preserves identifiers
  • safest default for context packing
• aggressive-lossy
  • adds analyzer-backed renaming plus whitespace/comment compression
  • current stable scope: local variables and local functions
  • stronger compression, lower readability

Lossy build workflow

dart run bin/dart_minify.dart lossy-build --project-root ../Prism
dart run bin/dart_minify.dart apply-lossy --project-root ../Prism

Manifest output:

• ../Prism/.dart_minify/lossy-manifest.json

apply-lossy validates source checksums from the manifest before replacement. Use --force only when you intentionally want to bypass that protection.

Flutter + FVM

This repository pins Flutter 3.41.4 in .fvmrc for local consistency.

Typical local commands:

fvm flutter --version
fvm dart --version
fvm dart test

If your target project is Flutter, lossy-build automatically runs flutter pub run build_runner (or fvm flutter pub run build_runner when .fvmrc is present in that project).

Examples

• CLI and wrapper examples: example/

Docs

• Agent Integration Guide
• Benchmarks

Limitations

• Aggressive renaming is intentionally conservative in v1.
• This is a context-optimization tool, not a production obfuscator.
• After large transforms, run dart analyze or flutter analyze.