dart_server 1.0.0

A lightweight, Express.js-like HTTP server framework for Dart. Build REST APIs with routing, middleware, and JSON handling using zero external dependencies.

Changelog

1.0.0

Initial release.

Modular architecture (NestJS-style, optional)

• Module — groups providers and controllers, with imports/exports and per-module provider encapsulation (plus isGlobal).
• Provider — dependency injection with singleton, transient and value scopes, resolved via Injector.get<T>(); missing providers and circular dependencies fail fast with DiError.
• Controller — class-based route grouping under a basePath via RouteRegistrar, with constructor injection.
• OnInit — async lifecycle hook awaited during bootstrap in dependency order.
• DartServerFactory.create(rootModule) — wires the graph and mounts every controller's routes; returns an ordinary DartServer.
• No decorators, reflection or codegen — wiring is plain, analyzable Dart.
• CLI: dart_server create scaffolds a modular app; make:resource / make:module / make:controller / make:service / make:repository / make:model generate feature modules under lib/modules/<name>/.

Routing & requests

• Express-style DartServer with get/post/put/delete/patch/head/options/all.
• Path parameters (/users/:id) and a trailing wildcard (/files/*); a * in any non-final segment is rejected at registration.
• Automatic HEAD → GET fallback with the response body stripped.
• Request with path, method, headers, query, params, bodyBytes, body, context, and a lazy, cached json().
• Raw bodyBytes always preserved (binary-safe); body decodes UTF-8 with malformed bytes replaced rather than thrown; json() re-throws on every call for invalid JSON instead of caching null.
• Configurable maxBodyBytes (default 1 MiB) — oversized bodies are rejected with 413 before any handler runs.
• Malformed percent-encoding in a path segment falls back to the raw value instead of producing a 500.

Responses

• Response.json, text, html, status, bytes, redirect, fluent .header().
• HEAD responses send the Content-Length but no body; 204/304/1xx responses send neither a body nor a Content-Length.

Middleware & errors

• Global middleware with next() chaining and per-request context.
• Handler errors are converted to responses inside the chain, so middleware (and logger/cors) observe error responses too.
• HttpError with status-mapped constructors; customizable onError.

CLI (dart_server)

• dart_server create <name> — scaffolds a ready-to-run app (entry point, app wiring, routes, controllers/models/repositories layout) and runs pub get.
• dart_server dev — runs with DART_SERVER_ENV=development and auto-restarts on .dart changes under lib//bin/; dart_server prod runs in production.
• dart_server make:model|controller|repository|middleware|service|resource — code generators with name normalization (snake/camel/Pascal) and --force.
• Installable via dart pub global activate dart_server; zero dependencies (hand-rolled argument parsing).

Dev tools

• app.useDevTools() — an in-process development dashboard at /__dev that tracks recent requests (method, path, status, timing, headers, request/ response bodies), aggregate stats, the live route table and server info, with a JSON snapshot at /__dev/api. Self-contained (no external assets).
• Development-only: disabled when DART_SERVER_ENV/DART_ENV/ENV is production-like; configurable mount path, buffer size and body capture.

Bundled middleware

• logger() — logs successful and errored requests.
• cors() — secure by default: credentials: true with a wildcard origin is refused; use the origins allow-list for credentialed cross-origin access. Pre-flights are detected by Access-Control-Request-Method so explicit app.options(...) routes still run.
• serveStatic() — rejects .. and symlink path-traversal (real target re-checked against the root).

Other

• Zero external runtime dependencies (built on dart:io + dart:convert).
• listen(..., quiet: true) suppresses the startup banner.