inkpal_bridge 1.4.5 copy "inkpal_bridge: ^1.4.5" to clipboard
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Published 8 hours ago • verified publisherinkpal.ai
SDKFlutter
PlatformAndroidiOSLinuxmacOSWindows
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Let AI agents inspect, debug, and control your running Flutter app — read widgets, tap, screenshot, capture errors. Zero deps. Debug-only.

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1.4.5 #

  • Pubspec description trimmed to fit pub.dev's 60–180 character window so search snippets render the full description. No code change.

1.4.4 #

  • README simplified — single primary use case ("let your AI inspect, debug, and control your running Flutter app"), real-conversation example near the top, three-capability summary (Read / Drive / Catch), trimmed command catalog. The example app already demonstrates the full surface.
  • License flow clarified: inkpal_bridge is free for personal and commercial use with a key from inkpal.ai signup. Documented as the install path.

1.4.3 #

  • README rewrite. Stronger positioning ("give your AI a working set of hands inside your Flutter app"), explicit comparison vs marionette_flutter and flutter_driver, simplified quick-start path (1 init call), reordered tier capabilities into use-case columns, added privacy/security section, dropped jargon ("MCP-native"). No code change.
  • Pubspec description rewritten to lead with capability, not acronym — improves first-touch comprehension on pub.dev search results.
  • Custom widgets documented. InkPalWalkerHooks (already public since 1.4.0) is now first-class in the README + has a working demo in example/lib/main.dart. Lets the AI agent recognise proprietary widgets (BrandButton, GlassCard, etc.) by label without Semantics(label:) wrappers. Closes the recognised gap vs marionette_flutter.
  • Example app rewritten as a multi-zone showcase modelled on the InkPal battlefield app — counter zone, forms zone, list zone, custom-widgets zone exercising walkerHooks.
  • Pub.dev score recovery. Score was 145/160. Two deductions fixed: (1) auto_provision.dart:20 and log_buffer.dart:11 had <placeholder> tokens in dartdoc that the analyser flagged as HTML. Replaced with shell-style $placeholder. (2) CHANGELOG now lists 1.4.1+1.4.2+1.4.3 in canonical heading format.
  • Topics updated for discoverability: mcp, ai, claude, copilot, agent (was ai, mcp, testing, automation, devtools).
  • Pricing copy aligned with single Pro model. Earlier 1.4.3 draft carried over the legacy Free / Pro / Studio capability table. Replaced with one "What you can do" table — every capability ships with any valid license (trial or paid). Reflects the locked single-Pro pricing model on inkpal.ai.
  • First-touch pivot: lead with "start free, full power", not prices. Dollar/rupee amounts removed from the README — pub.dev visitors are evaluating, not buying. Pricing details live at inkpal.ai/pricing for visitors who're already convinced. Same change applied to the npm inkpal package README. Studies show pricing-on-first-touch is a conversion killer for dev tools when the product hasn't earned attention yet.

1.4.2 #

  • Version-sync fix. inkpalBridgeVersion constant in lib/src/_version.dart (which ext.flutter.inkpal.ping reports to the MCP server) was stuck at 1.4.0 while pubspec moved to 1.4.1, causing every handshake to mis-report the running bridge version.
  • Pub.dev score recovery. 1.4.1 lost 5 score points because its CHANGELOG.md didn't include a ## 1.4.1 heading. This release fixes the doc convention going forward and documents both 1.4.1 + 1.4.2 changes below.
  • No public API changes from 1.4.1 — drop-in upgrade.

1.4.1 #

  • Packaging hygiene. Untracked stale .dart_tool/ artefacts that were leaking into the published archive (3 entries in package root, 2 under example/). Tarball validation cleaner, no source changes.
  • .pubignore extended to explicitly exclude example/.dart_tool/ and example/build/ so the example/ showcase app's local build state can never bloat future releases.

1.4.0 #

  • App-registered VM extensions. Host apps can expose their own operations via InkPalAppExtensions.register(name:, description:, handler:) under ext.flutter.inkpal.app.<name>. Enumerated + invoked through the new MCP tools so downstream teams extend InkPal without a bridge republish.
  • Synthetic pointer driver + hit-test probe. New coordinate-tap path dispatches PointerAdded/Down/Up/Removed through GestureBinding.handlePointerEvent, interpolating 40px steps for drags. Works on widgets that never emit a SemanticsAction.tap — raw Listener, custom GestureRecognizer, CustomPaint hit regions. Opt-in via x + y params on ext.flutter.inkpal.tap; semantics stays the default. Includes a probeHit() helper that reports whether a point can actually reach a target RenderObject or is absorbed by a ModalBarrier / IgnorePointer / overlay first.
  • Walker hooks for design-system widgets. InkPalBridge.init(walkerHooks: InkPalWalkerHooks(isInteractiveWidget:, shouldStopTraversal:, extractTextFrom:)) lets host apps surface their own widget types to the agent's interaction vocabulary. All three callbacks optional; built-in walker rules still apply when hooks are missing.
  • Zero-config screenshot. When no RepaintBoundary is wired by the host app, falls back to compositing the first RenderView's live layer tree into a fresh Scene and encoding offscreen. Apps that initialise the bridge manually without inkpalRunApp now get working screenshots out of the box. Identical return shape — callers can't tell which path ran.
  • Adaptive scroll. scrollToFind now iterates every on-screen scrollable deepest-first and gives each a full-budget down + up sweep instead of splitting 10/10. Default attempt cap raised to 50; stall detection still breaks the loop early on short lists. Fixes the "scrolling the wrong scrollable" class of miss on nested lists.

1.3.4 #

  • Default API host updated.
  • Topics: add automation, drop debugging.

1.3.3 #

  • B5 fix: element walker re-acquires semantics handle per capture. After multiple push/pop navigation cycles the original SemanticsHandle could become detached from the current PipelineOwner, leaving the semantics tree empty even though widgets render visually. The walker now disposes + re-acquires the handle before each captureScreenContext() call (_reensureSemantics()), and iterates all renderViews instead of only the first. This fixes getWidgetTree + getScreenContent + tap all returning empty/failing after navigation.

1.3.2 #

  • Auto-wired navigator key + observer. Two new globals exported from the package barrel:
    • inkpalNavigatorKey — GlobalKey<NavigatorState> the bridge uses to drive Navigator.pop() directly from ext.flutter.inkpal.goBack, no more "tap the back arrow" gymnastics.
    • inkpalNavigatorObserver — singleton InkPalNavigatorObserver so getCurrentRoute works without consumers having to construct their own observer. Wire on your MaterialApp:
    MaterialApp(
  navigatorKey: inkpalNavigatorKey,
  navigatorObservers: [inkpalNavigatorObserver],
  home: ...,
)
    Without these, goBack falls back to its old tap-the-arrow behaviour.

1.3.1 #

Field-test bug fixes surfaced by running the bridge against a real Flutter benchmark app and exercising ext.flutter.inkpal.* extensions.

  • B1 — Screenshot extension always failed on freshly launched apps. inkpalRunApp now wraps the user's root in a RepaintBoundary tagged with the package-wide inkpalRootRepaintKey. ScreenshotCapture falls back to that key when the configured appContentKey has no context, and the new captureWithDiagnostics() API surfaces the actual exception + truncated stack instead of the opaque "Screenshot capture failed" string. The ext.flutter.inkpal.screenshot extension now reports the real cause of failure.
  • B2 — getCurrentRoute returned null after MaterialPageRoute(builder:) pushes. InkPalNavigatorObserver previously skipped routes whose settings.name was null, leaving the stack empty even after a successful push. The observer now falls back to a <RuntimeType> synthetic identifier (e.g. <MaterialPageRoute<void>>). For stable identifiers across builds, callers should still pass MaterialPageRoute(builder: ..., settings: RouteSettings(name: '/foo')).
  • B3 — getWidgetTree did not surface ValueKey<String>-tagged anchors like Figma Scaffold(key: ValueKey('fig-2-5')). The tree walker now runs an Element-tree pass after the semantics pass and emits a UiElementType.keyed entry (with the new key field on UiElement) for every ValueKey<String>-tagged widget — surfacing structural anchors that don't carry a semantics label of their own.
  • B4 — ext.flutter.inkpal.ping reported the hardcoded version "1.0.0". Added lib/src/_version.dart — a single inkpalBridgeVersion constant that the ping handler reads. Bump this in lockstep with pubspec.yaml (no codegen, no extra dep).

New tests #

  • test/screenshot_capture_test.dart — fallback to inkpalRootRepaintKey
    • structured failure-error coverage.
  • test/route_observer_test.dart — unnamed MaterialPageRoute push now populates the route stack; explicit RouteSettings.name still wins; pop removes the synthetic identifier.
  • test/widget_tree_keyed_test.dart — ValueKey<String>-tagged Scaffold surfaces with type: keyed; multiple keyed widgets de-dupe; non-string ValueKeys are ignored; JSON round-trip carries the key.

1.3.0 #

  • Socket reconnect hardened — exponential backoff with jitter (500ms base × 2^attempt, ±200ms), 5-minute cap, stops after 30 consecutive failures
  • VM extensions decoupled from WS state — extensions now work regardless of WebSocket connection status
  • Fixed dispose() LateInit crash — safe to call repeatedly, including after failed init
  • _perfMonitor guaranteed initialized in all init() code paths
  • Testing hooks exposed — @visibleForTesting getters for router (CommandRouter) and semanticsWalker (SemanticsWalker)
  • SemanticsWalker re-exported from public barrel
  • New tests: reconnect_test.dart, dispose_test.dart, visible_for_testing_test.dart — 12+ new tests across all new/fixed behavior
  • New test fixture: test_app/ with keyed widget harness + 40 integration tests covering all 33 VM extensions
  • New CI: .github/workflows/bridge-e2e.yml runs on Android emulator + iOS simulator on every bridge push

1.2.2 #

  • Remove comparison-to-alternatives section from README
  • No code changes

1.2.1 #

  • Sharpened pubspec description with target search keywords (Flutter MCP, runtime error capture, HTTP monitor, VM service extensions)
  • README: added comparison table vs moinsen_runapp and marionette_mcp
  • README: bumped install version to ^1.2.1
  • No code changes

1.2.0 #

  • Added InkPalErrorCatcher: three-layer error capture (FlutterError + PlatformDispatcher + runZonedGuarded) with time-windowed deduplication and handler chaining
  • Added InkPalHttpMonitor: read-only HTTP request monitor with redacted headers, ring buffer, and collision detection against InkPalNetworkInterceptor
  • Added InkPalErrorBoundary: Stack-based overlay widget that survives app rebuild failures, with debug + release builders
  • Added generateInkPalBugReport: packages errors, HTTP, logs, route, and app state as markdown for LLM consumption (capped at 8k chars)
  • Added inkpalRunApp: drop-in runApp replacement wiring error catcher + HTTP monitor + error boundary + bridge init inside a guarded zone
  • Added optional errorCatcher and httpMonitor parameters to InkPalBridge.init (backward-compatible)
  • Fixed ErrorSubscriber silently dropping errors before startWatching() — ring buffer now always populated, _watching gates only stream notification

1.1.0 #

  • WebSocket connect timeout (10s) with TimeoutException on miss
  • licenseReady future on InkPalBridge for license-gated startup flows
  • Grace period enforcement moved to tier getter (callers bypassing hasFeature() now get downgraded correctly)
  • Screenshot capture wrapped in 5s timeout — returns null instead of hanging
  • License validator test suite (validation flow, grace period, throttle, network failure)

1.0.1 #

  • Shortened package description for pub.dev display
  • Fixed homepage URL (now points to GitHub repo)
  • Removed web platform declaration (package uses dart:io)
  • Suppressed hasFlag deprecation warnings

1.0.0 #

Initial stable release.

Core #

  • WebSocket-based bidirectional communication (JSON-RPC 2.0)
  • Automatic reconnection with exponential backoff (1s-64s)
  • 10-second connection timeout
  • Message buffering during disconnects (100 message cap)
  • Zero overhead in release builds (bridge is null)

Inspection #

  • Semantics tree walking — read UI without instrumentation
  • Widget tree as structured JSON
  • Element search by label or text
  • Screenshot capture with configurable width (default 720px, 5s timeout)
  • Screen context caching with automatic invalidation

Interaction #

  • Tap, long press, double tap by label/key/semantics
  • Text field input
  • Scroll (directional + scroll-to-element)
  • Slider/stepper increment and decrement
  • Route navigation (push, pop, go)
  • Route tracking via NavigatorObserver
  • Full navigation stack access
  • Route discovery (all routes seen in session)
  • Support for standard Navigator, go_router, GetX, and Beamer
  • Custom onNavigateToRoute callback for any router

Telemetry #

  • Structured logging (log, debug, warning, error levels)
  • Real-time error streaming with immediate delivery
  • Log batching (500ms intervals for non-error logs)
  • Error context enrichment (widget tree, state, recent logs)
  • Log correlation — time-windowed action-to-log mapping

State Time-Travel #

  • State snapshot capture
  • Snapshot listing and retrieval
  • State diffing between any two snapshots
  • Live state stream observation
  • Max 50 snapshots with automatic eviction

Interaction Recording #

  • Record user/AI interactions as typed actions
  • Export as JSON or Dart integration test code
  • Recording status monitoring

Layout Diffing #

  • Screen layout snapshot capture
  • Before/after layout comparison

Performance #

  • FPS monitoring
  • Jank detection

Network Control (Studio tier) #

  • Per-URL HTTP mock rules (pattern matching, response code, body, delay)
  • Offline mode (block all requests)
  • Latency and packet loss simulation

VM Service Extensions #

  • 33 extensions registered under ext.flutter.inkpal.*
  • Fallback channel for local development without WebSocket
  • Mirrors all WebSocket commands

License Gating #

  • Three tiers: Free, Pro, Studio
  • Server-side validation with signed grants (HMAC-SHA256)
  • 24-hour grant TTL with 7-day grace period
  • Validation throttling (60s cooldown)
  • licenseReady future for callers needing gate sync

App Manifest #

  • Rich AiAppManifest for LLM context
  • Screen manifest with widget descriptions
  • App map with full structure

Touch Visualization #

  • Visual ripple overlay for AI-driven interactions
  • Configurable via TouchVisualizerController

Platform #

  • Zero third-party dependencies (Flutter SDK only)
  • Flutter 3.10+ / Dart 3.0+
  • MIT license

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verified publisherinkpal.ai

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Let AI agents inspect, debug, and control your running Flutter app — read widgets, tap, screenshot, capture errors. Zero deps. Debug-only.

Homepage
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Topics

#mcp #ai #claude #copilot #agent

License

MIT (license)

Dependencies

flutter

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