detect_unused_code 2.3.0

A fast, zero-dependency Dart and Flutter dead code, assets & dependencies remediation engine. Safely cleans unused classes, imports, packages, assets, and TODOs.

2.3.0

• External Package Dependencies Auditing Engine (--packages / --audit-packages):
  • Added full detection of unused runtime (dependencies:) and development (dev_dependencies:) packages declared in pubspec.yaml but never imported or referenced in Dart source code.
  • Isolated per-package scoping: each pubspec.yaml across monorepos and nested sub-packages is evaluated strictly against its own package code scope, preventing false negatives where an import in a sub-package excuses an unused dependency in the root.
  • Zero false-positives guard: protects core SDK frameworks (flutter, flutter_test, flutter_localizations), CLI tools, linters (lints, flutter_lints, custom_lint), code generators and builders (build_runner, json_serializable, freezed, etc.), and build.yaml configurations.
• Duplicate Dependency Detection:
  • Automatically identifies duplicate package declarations within the same pubspec.yaml (duplicate entries under dependencies: or duplicated across both dependencies: and dev_dependencies:).
• Safe Surgical Dependency Pruning (--clean-packages):
  • Dedicated dependency cleaner with automatic pre-modification backup snapshot to .detect_unused/backups/<id>/files/.
  • Surgically removes both single-line (pkg: ^1.0.0) and multi-line (git:, path:, hosted:) dependency blocks from targeted pubspec.yaml files.
  • Preserves surrounding indentation, spacing, and comments.
  • Full instant rollback support via detect_unused --restore <id>.
  • Integrated into --clean-all as Step 9.
• Automated Test Suite:
  • Added comprehensive automated unit and integration tests under test/dependency_auditor_test.dart covering multi-pubspec scoping, duplicate detection, and surgical pruning.

2.2.0

• Assets, Images & Fonts Auditing Engine (--assets / --audit-assets):
  • Added full detection of unused media assets across Dart and Flutter projects, including raster images (PNG, JPG, WEBP, GIF), vectors (SVG), animations (Lottie JSON, Rive), and fonts (TTF, OTF).
  • Smart reference tracking supporting direct string paths, filenames, cross-package paths, and code-generator CamelCase identifiers (flutter_gen / spider).
  • Screen resolution variant awareness: preserves 2.0x/, 3.0x/, etc., whenever the parent/base image is used.
  • Font family tracking in TextStyle(fontFamily: ...) against flutter -> fonts in pubspec.yaml.
  • Calculates and reports exact reclaimable disk space in B, KB, MB, and GB.
• Multi-Package & Monorepo Flexible Support:
  • Flexible recursive discovery of all pubspec.yaml files located anywhere in the workspace (root, packages/, modules/, nested sub-packages, Melos monorepos).
  • Independent package context scoping (PackageDescriptor) mapping declared assets, fonts, and directory roots per package.
  • Cross-package reference resolution (packages/<package_name>/assets/...).
• Safe Asset Pruning & Targeted Pubspec Updates (--clean-assets):
  • Dedicated asset cleaner with automatic backup snapshots to .detect_unused/backups/<id>/files/ before deletion.
  • Automatically prunes empty directories after deleting asset files.
  • Targeted surgical line pruning: removes explicit asset declarations from the specific owning pubspec.yaml without affecting other packages or YAML formatting.
  • Full rollback support via detect_unused --restore <id>.
  • Integrated into --clean-all as Step 8.
• Automated Test Suite:
  • Added comprehensive automated unit and integration tests covering multi-pubspec discovery, asset auditing, resolution variants, and cleaner rollback.

2.1.2

• Added automated GitHub Actions CI workflow (.github/workflows/ci.yml) verifying formatting, static analysis, and dry-run publishing on PRs and pushes.
• Added GitHub issue templates for bug reports and feature requests (.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/).
• Added open-source community standards guide (CONTRIBUTING.md).
• Added SEO-optimized FAQ section and repository status badges to README.md.
• Updated package version to 2.1.2.

2.1.1

• Comprehensive documentation review and refinements across README.md.
• Updated recommended dependency declaration to ^2.1.1.
• Added complete coverage for cleanup flags (--clean-dead-code, --clean-backups, --keep-backup, --version) in Arabic & English documentation.
• Improved clarity of safety architecture and step-by-step CLI usage examples.

2.1.0

• Phased, Multi-Stage Cleanup Pipeline:
  • Refactored --clean-all from a monolithic single-pass into a sequential 7-stage pipeline (Commented Files → Dead Classes → Dead Blocks → Internal Classes Privatization → TODOs → Unused Imports → Dead Code).
  • Automatically re-audits project AST and line offsets between each cleanup stage to guarantee 100% surgical accuracy and prevent offset drift.
  • Appends intermediate snapshot states incrementally into backup manifests.
• Smart Dart Extension Member Awareness:
  • Implemented deep AST inspection for Dart extensions, parsing declared getters, setters, methods, and static fields.
  • Extensions are now checked for cross-file member references, preventing false-positive "unused extension" flags when extension methods or properties are used without referencing the extension name explicitly.
• Automated Constructor Key Cleanup in Privatized Classes:
  • Automatically strips unused super.key and Key? key parameters and super initializers from constructors of privatized _ClassName widgets when no call sites pass key:, preventing unused_element_parameter analyzer warnings.
• Enhanced Directive & File Boundary Parsing:
  • Robust dangling URI directive cleanup handling single-line and multi-line import/export/part statements with exact URI matching.
  • String- and comment-aware block boundary scanner (_findDeclarationEndLine) that ignores braces inside single, double, triple-quoted strings and block comments.
  • Unbalanced comment marker check before removing dead blocks to safeguard file syntax integrity.
• Windows Path & Character-by-Character Parser Robustness:
  • Supported Windows 8.3 short paths resolution via symbolic link evaluation and sanitized drive prefixes.
  • Re-implemented stripCommentsAndStrings using a high-performance character-by-character scanner handling nested block comments, raw strings, and escapes while preserving exact line and column offsets.
• CLI Flags & Target Scope Enhancements:
  • Added --version and -V flags to quickly print the installed package version.
  • Added --clean-backups command to easily wipe all snapshot archives in .detect_unused/backups/.
  • Added --keep-backup flag to retain snapshot archives upon restore.
  • Automatic target project root resolution when passing a folder or file path argument.

2.0.1

• Fix: Exclude .detect_unused/ and backup snapshot directories from file scanning and analysis to prevent scanning cached backups.
• Improvement: Automatically delete restored backup snapshot folders upon successful restoration to reclaim disk space (with --keep-backup flag to retain if desired).
• Fix: Auto-resolve dangling barrel export and import directives referencing deleted files during cleanup before running post-cleanup health verification.

2.0.0

• Major Upgrade: Transformed detect_unused_code into a powerful code remediation and automated cleaning engine while preserving zero external runtime dependencies.
• Automated Cleanup Engine (--clean-all, --clean):
  • Safely deletes 100% commented-out files (--clean-commented-files).
  • Surgically removes dead commented-out code blocks in active files (--clean-dead-blocks).
  • Removes zero-usage dead classes, mixins, widgets, and enums (--clean-dead-classes).
  • Safely privatizes file-internal only public classes to _ClassName (--privatize-internal).
  • Cleans and strips pending // TODO comment lines (--clean-todos).
  • Cleans unused_import and unnecessary_import statements (--clean-unused-imports).
  • Remediates dead null-aware expressions (?. to .) and unreachable dead code (--clean-dead-code).
• Defensive Safety Architecture:
  • Snapshot Backups: Automatically creates complete snapshots in .detect_unused/backups/ before performing any cleanup.
  • Instant Rollback: Allows rolling back active project code to any previous snapshot with detect_unused --restore <id> or detect_unused --restore-latest.
  • Backups Browser: View all existing snapshots with detect_unused --backups.
  • Automated .gitignore Protection: Automatically adds .detect_unused/ to .gitignore to prevent committing backup snapshots.
  • Simulation Mode (--dry-run): Preview planned file deletions and modifications without touching disk.
  • Interactive Confirmation: Prompts for explicit user confirmation before executing changes (bypassable with --yes or -y).
  • Post-Cleanup Health Verification: Automatically runs dart analyze after cleaning and prompts for an auto-rollback if any compiler errors are introduced.
• Full API Documentation: 100% dartdoc documentation coverage on all new classes (BackupManager, BackupManifest, BackupFileEntry, RestoreResult, CodeCleaner, CleanResult).

1.3.2

• Appended line number directly to the file path in the TODO console report (e.g. path/to/file.dart:line) enabling instant clickability in IDE terminals.

1.3.1

• Improved TODO comment scanner to capture all TODO tags across all comments, documentation comments (///), and inline notes, matching the Dart analyzer's dart(todo) diagnostic behavior in IDEs.

1.3.0

• Added comprehensive all-in-one default inspection covering 13 code quality points without requiring extra flags.
• Added Dart Analyzer diagnostics inspection:
  • unused_import: Unused imports across files.
  • unnecessary_import: Duplicate or redundant imports.
  • unused_local_variable: Unused local variables.
  • unused_field: Unused class fields.
  • unused_element: Unused private functions, methods, and elements.
  • dead_code: Unreachable dead code blocks.
  • dead_null_aware_expression: Unnecessary null-aware ?. operators on non-nullable targets.
• Added TODO task tracker: Detects pending // TODO: ... and /* TODO ... */ tasks with exact line numbers, descriptions, and clickable file URIs.
• Enabled file-internal only public classes analysis by default (includeInternal: true).
• Added fine-tuning flags: --todos-only, --diagnostics-only, --no-todos, --no-diagnostics, and --no-internal.
• Updated JSON report export (--json) to serialize all 13 inspection points and categorized diagnostics.
• Added TodoItemResult and DiagnosticIssueResult models with full dartdoc documentation.

1.2.0

• Added comprehensive dartdoc documentation comments across 100% of public API elements (classes, constructors, methods, and properties).
• Enclosed flow control statements in curly braces across all files to conform with curly_braces_in_flow_control_structures lint.
• Added analysis_options.yaml with package:lints/recommended.yaml and formatted all Dart files with dart format.

1.1.0

• Enhanced --json flag to automatically save the audit report as a .json file (detect_unused_code.json) in the current execution directory instead of printing raw JSON to the terminal.
• Added support for specifying a custom JSON output filename (e.g. --json=custom_report.json or --json custom_report.json).
• Added progress bar display during JSON analysis and a clean terminal summary showing the output file location upon completion.

1.0.0

• Initial release of detect_unused_code.
• Full project scan and path-specific scan (--url, --path, positional argument).
• Convenient short CLI command alias detect_unused.
• Detection of unused/dead classes, widgets, mixins, enums, controllers, and models.
• Detection of public classes with file-internal only usage (--include-internal).
• Detection of 100% commented-out files with extracted class names.
• Configurable thresholds for heavily commented files (--threshold).
• Configurable minimum line limits for commented code blocks (--min-lines).
• JSON output format support for CI/CD pipelines (--json).
• Zero external runtime dependencies.
• Programmatic API via UnusedCodeAuditor.
• Broad SDK compatibility (>=2.17.0 <4.0.0).