FlutterSDK Artisan

Dowel

One binary for your Flutter dev loop and your AI agent.

Start, hot reload and inspect a running app, scaffold code, install plugins transactionally, and hand the same commands to your agent through a built-in MCP server.

Documentation · pub.dev · Issues

At a glance

Install

dart pub add dowel

dart run dowel install

install writes bin/dispatcher.dart (the entry that calls runDowel), the codegen barrels lib/app/_plugins.g.dart and lib/app/commands/_index.g.dart, and builds the fast wrapper bin/dowel (about 0.2 s to start, against 0.4 to 2.7 s for dart run). Run it again and it skips every file that already exists (--force overwrites them) and keeps the dowel constraint your pubspec already has: install adds dowel: ^ only when the pubspec declares none. It adds only the machine-local cache to .gitignore (.dowel/cli-bundle*, .dowel/build.stamp* and .dowel/.dowel.lock/), so commit .dowel/plugins.json and .dowel/installed/.

Moving an app from fluttersdk_artisan? install stops on the files that package generated and prints what to delete and the commands to run; doctor warns about the same leftovers. The steps are in Migrating from fluttersdk_artisan.

dart run dowel list      # every registered command, grouped by namespace

dart run dowel doctor # preflight: Flutter and Dart on PATH, the default port

Run the app under supervision

start launches flutter run detached and records the session per project under ~/.dowel/sessions/ /, so two apps can be driven at once and a command never acts on another project's app.

dart run dowel start --device=chrome

dart run dowel reload # hot reload, Dart state kept dart run dowel hot-restart # hot restart, Dart state dropped dart run dowel logs --follow dart run dowel stop

A command that dials the running app (tinker among them) exits 75 while the app is still building, so a script can retry; any other non-zero code is a real failure.

Add a command

make:command Greet scaffolds the class and registers it in the nearest provider. The signature string declares the arguments and flags:

import 'package:dowel/dowel.dart';

final class GreetCommand extends DowelCommand { @override String get signature => 'greet {name} {--shout}';

@override String get description => 'Greet a person by name.';

@override CommandBoot get boot => CommandBoot.none;

@override Future handle(DowelContext context) async { final name = context.input.argument('name') ?? 'world'; final greeting = 'Hello, $name'; context.output.success( context.input.option('shout') == true ? greeting.toUpperCase() : greeting, ); return 0; } }

A command that the signature cannot express overrides configure(ArgParser) instead. Two providers registering the same command name fail at boot with DowelCommandCollisionException.

Install plugins

dart pub add awesome_plugin

dart run dowel plugin:install awesome_plugin --dry-run # preview every operation dart run dowel plugin:install awesome_plugin

A plugin describes its install footprint in an install.yaml manifest, or in code with the PluginInstaller DSL when it needs branching. Either way the installer stages every operation and writes nothing until the commit, writes through a .tmp file and a rename, skips what is already in place, and records each applied operation under .dowel/installed/ .json, so plugin:uninstall can reverse it. The reversal removes the files an install wrote, the dependencies it added and the plugin's registry entry; a dependency the project already declared stays, and edits injected into existing files (InjectImport, InjectAfterPattern) are logged as skipped, so remove those by hand. An install record written by an older dowel is refused until plugin:install --force rewrites it, and plugin:install refuses to run when lib/app/_plugins.g.dart registers providers but .dowel/plugins.json is missing: restore it from version control.

A plugin without a manifest is registered directly in .dowel/plugins.json and needs the scaffold from dowel install. make:plugin generates a plugin package with all of this wired.

Give your agent the MCP server

./bin/dowel mcp:install      # or: dart run dowel mcp:install

mcp:install writes the dowel entry into .mcp.json; reconnect your client once (Claude Code: /mcp reconnect dowel). The server speaks stdio JSON-RPC and exposes the substrate tools plus whatever the installed plugins contribute:

dowel_start and dowel_restart take every option their CLI commands take. Without a running app the server stays up with the substrate tools and reconnects on the next call that needs the VM Service, after the app restarts too. A filter (.dowel/mcp.json, then DOWEL_MCP_* variables, then mcp:serve flags) allows or denies tools and packages; a deny wins at every layer.

Commands

For AI coding agents

Rules for an agent working with this package. Each one is a mistake the maintainers already made once.

Dependencies

dart_mcp for the MCP server, vm_service for the connection to the running app, args for command-line parsing, yaml and yaml_edit for manifests and in-place edits, xml for Android and Apple platform files, crypto for the install-record hashes. Dowel itself is pure Dart; the app you drive needs Flutter.

Links

• [Documentation](https://anilcancakir.com/dowel/docs/gett