• Android Studio and IntelliJ
• Visual Studio Code

VS Code is a code editor to build and debug apps. With the Flutter extension installed, you can compile, deploy, and debug Flutter apps.

To install the latest version of VS Code, follow Microsoft's instructions for the relevant platform:

• Install on macOS
• Install on Windows
• Install on Linux

1. Start VS Code.

2. Open a browser and go to the Flutter extension page on the Visual Studio Marketplace.

3. Click Install. Installing the Flutter extension also installs the Dart extension.

1. Go to View > Command Palette....

   You can also press Ctrl / Cmd + Shift + P.

2. Type doctor.

3. Select Flutter: Run Flutter Doctor.

   Once you select this command, VS Code does the following:

   • Opens the Output panel.
   • Displays flutter (flutter) in the dropdown on the upper right of this panel.
   • Displays the output of flutter doctor command.

Updates to the extensions are shipped on a regular basis. By default, VS Code automatically updates extensions when updates are available.

To install updates yourself:

1. Click Extensions in the Side Bar.
2. If the Flutter extension has an available update, click Update and then Reload.
3. Restart VS Code.

There are a couple ways to create a new project.

To create a new Flutter project from the Flutter starter app template:

1. Go to View > Command Palette....

   You can also press Ctrl / Cmd + Shift + P.

2. Type flutter.

3. Select the Flutter: New Project.

4. Press Enter.

5. Select Application.

6. Press Enter.

7. Select a Project location.

8. Enter your desired Project name.

To open an existing Flutter project:

1. Go to File > Open.

   You can also press Ctrl / Cmd + O

2. Browse to the directory holding your existing Flutter source code files.

3. Click Open.

The Flutter extension performs code analysis. The code analysis can:

• Highlight language syntax

• Complete code based on rich type analysis

• Navigate to type declarations

  • Go to Go > Go to Definition.
  • You can also press F12.

• Find type usages.

  • Press Shift + F12.

• View all current source code problems.

  • Go to View > Problems.
  • You can also press Ctrl / Cmd + Shift + M.
  • The Problems pane displays any analysis issues:
    

:::note You can debug your app in a couple of ways.

• Using DevTools, a suite of debugging and profiling tools that run in a browser.
• Using VS Code's built-in debugging features, such as setting breakpoints.

The instructions below describe features available in VS Code. For information on launching and using DevTools, see Running DevTools from VS Code in the DevTools docs. :::

Start debugging by clicking Run > Start Debugging from the main IDE window, or press F5.

When a Flutter project is open in VS Code, you should see a set of Flutter specific entries in the status bar, including a Flutter SDK version and a device name (or the message No Devices):

:::note

• If you do not see a Flutter version number or device info, your project might not have been detected as a Flutter project. Ensure that the folder that contains your pubspec.yaml is inside a VS Code Workspace Folder.
• If the status bar reads No Devices, Flutter has not been able to discover any connected iOS or Android devices or simulators. You need to connect a device, or start a simulator or emulator, to proceed. :::

The Flutter extension automatically selects the last device connected. However, if you have multiple devices/simulators connected, click device in the status bar to see a pick-list at the top of the screen. Select the device you want to use for running or debugging.

:::secondary Are you developing for macOS or iOS remotely using Visual Studio Code Remote? If so, you might need to manually unlock the keychain. For more information, see this question on StackExchange. :::

Go to Run > Start Without Debugging.

You can also press Ctrl + F5.

1. If desired, set breakpoints in your source code.

2. Click Run > Start Debugging. You can also press F5. The status bar turns orange to show you are in a debug session.
   

   • The left Debug Sidebar shows stack frames and variables.
   • The bottom Debug Console pane shows detailed logging output.
   • Debugging is based on a default launch configuration. To customize, click the cog at the top of the Debug Sidebar to create a launch.json file. You can then modify the values.

Flutter offers many different build modes to run your app in. You can read more about them in Flutter's build modes.

1. Open the launch.json file in VS Code.

   If you don't have a launch.json file:

   {: type="a"}

   1. Go to View > Run.

      You can also press Ctrl / Cmd + Shift + D

      The Run and Debug panel displays.

   2. Click create a launch.json file.

2. In the configurations section, change the flutterMode property to the build mode you want to target.

   For example, if you want to run in debug mode, your launch.json might look like this:

   "configurations": [
     {
       "name": "Flutter",
       "request": "launch",
       "type": "dart",
       "flutterMode": "debug"
     }
   ]

3. Run the app through the Run panel.

Flutter offers a best-in-class developer cycle enabling you to see the effect of your changes almost instantly with the Stateful Hot Reload feature. To learn more, check out Hot reload.

You might find the following advanced debugging tips useful:

During a debug session, several additional debugging commands are added to the Command Palette and to the Flutter inspector. When space is limited, the icon is used as the visual version of the label.

Toggle Baseline Painting {:.theme-icon width="20px"} : Causes each RenderBox to paint a line at each of its baselines.

Toggle Repaint Rainbow {:.theme-icon width="20px"} : Shows rotating colors on layers when repainting.

Toggle Slow Animations {:.theme-icon width="20px"} : Slows down animations to enable visual inspection.

Toggle Debug Mode Banner {:width="20px"} : Hides the debug mode banner even when running a debug build.

By default, debugging an external library is disabled in the Flutter extension. To enable:

1. Select Settings > Extensions > Dart Configuration.
2. Check the Debug External Libraries option.

If you have additional tips we should share, let us know!

Assists are code changes related to a certain code identifier. A number of these are available when the cursor is placed on a Flutter widget identifier, as indicated by the yellow lightbulb icon. To invoke the assist, click the lightbulb as shown in the following screenshot:

{:width="467px"}

You can also press Ctrl / Cmd + .

Quick fixes are similar, only they are shown with a piece of code has an error and they can assist in correcting it.

Wrap with new widget assist : This can be used when you have a widget that you want to wrap in a surrounding widget, for example if you want to wrap a widget in a Row or Column.

Wrap widget list with new widget assist : Similar to the assist above, but for wrapping an existing list of widgets rather than an individual widget.

Convert child to children assist : Changes a child argument to a children argument, and wraps the argument value in a list.

Convert StatelessWidget to StatefulWidget assist : Changes the implementation of a StatelessWidget to that of a StatefulWidget, by creating the State class and moving the code there.

Snippets can be used to speed up entering typical code structures. They are invoked by typing their prefix, and then selecting from the code completion window: {:width="100%"}

The Flutter extension includes the following snippets:

• Prefix stless: Create a new subclass of -StatelessWidget`.
• Prefix stful: Create a new subclass of StatefulWidget and its associated State subclass.
• Prefix stanim: Create a new subclass of StatefulWidget, and its associated State subclass including a field initialized with an AnimationController.

The Dart extension includes the following snippets:

You can also define custom snippets by executing Configure User Snippets from the Command Palette.

Hot reload : To perform a hot reload during a debug session, click Hot Reload on the Debug Toolbar.

You can also press Ctrl + F5 (Cmd + F5 on macOS).

Keyboard mappings can be changed by executing the Open Keyboard Shortcuts command from the Command Palette.

Hot reload works by injecting updated source code files into the running Dart VM (Virtual Machine). This includes not only adding new classes, but also adding methods and fields to existing classes, and changing existing functions. A few types of code changes cannot be hot reloaded though:

• Global variable initializers
• Static field initializers
• The main() method of the app

For these changes, restart your app without ending your debugging session. To perform a hot restart, run the Flutter: Hot Restart command from the Command Palette.

You can also press Ctrl + Shift + F5 or Cmd + Shift + F5 on macOS.

The Dart extension displays labels after the closing delimiters of multi-line constructs, such as constructor invocations, method calls, and list literals. Closing labels are editor annotations and don't change your source code, even though the default // prefix makes them look similar to comments.

To change the prefix:

1. Open the Command Palette.
2. Select Preferences: Open Settings (UI).
3. Search for dart.closingLabels.
4. In Dart: Closing Labels Prefix, enter your preferred prefix.

For example, to remove the comment marker while keeping space between the code and label, set the prefix to a single space ( ):

{
  "dart.closingLabelsPrefix": " "
}

To hide closing labels, turn off Dart: Closing Labels. For the complete list of closing label options, see the extension's settings reference.

The Flutter Property Editor is a powerful tool provided by the Flutter extension that lets you view and modify widget properties directly from its visual interface.

1. Click on the Flutter Property Editor icon {:width="20px"} in the VS Code sidebar.
2. The Flutter Property Editor will load in the side panel.
3. Please refer to the Flutter Property Editor documentation for a detailed usage guide.

{:width="600px"}

All known bugs are tracked in the issue tracker: Dart and Flutter extensions GitHub issue tracker. We welcome feedback, both on bugs/issues and feature requests.

Prior to filing new issues:

• Do a quick search in the issue trackers to see if the issue is already tracked.
• Make sure you are up to date with the most recent version of the plugin.

When filing new issues, include flutter doctor output.