Pubspec Format
Every pub package needs some metadata so it can specify its
dependencies. Pub packages that are shared with
others also need to provide some other information so users can discover them.
All of this metadata goes in the package’s pubspec:
a file named pubspec.yaml
that’s written in the
YAML language.
Supported fields
A pubspec can have the following fields:
name
- Required for every package. Learn more.
version
- Required for packages that are hosted on the Pub site. Learn more.
description
- Required for packages that are hosted on the Pub site. Learn more.
-
author
orauthors
- Optional. Learn more.
homepage
- Optional. URL pointing to the package’s homepage (or source code repository). Learn more.
repository
- Optional. URL pointing to the package’s source code repository. Learn more.
issue_tracker
- Optional. URL pointing to an issue tracker for the package. Learn more.
documentation
- Optional. Can be used to automatically create documentation. Learn more.
dependencies
- Can be omitted if your package has no dependencies. Learn more.
dev_dependencies
- Can be omitted if your package has no dev dependencies. Learn more.
dependency_overrides
- Can be omitted if you do not need to override any dependencies. Learn more.
environment
- Required as of Dart 2. Learn more.
executables
- Optional. Used to put a package’s executables on your PATH. Learn more.
publish_to
- Optional. Specify where to publish a package. Learn more.
Pub ignores all other fields.
Example
A simple but complete pubspec looks something like the following:
name: newtify version: 1.2.3 description: >- Have you been turned into a newt? Would you like to be? This package can help. It has all of the newt-transmogrification functionality you have been looking for. author: Natalie Weizenbaum <[email protected]> homepage: https://example-pet-store.com/newtify documentation: https://example-pet-store.com/newtify/docs environment: sdk: '>=2.0.0 <3.0.0' dependencies: efts: ^2.0.4 transmogrify: ^0.4.0 dev_dependencies: test: '>=0.6.0 <0.12.0'
Details
This section has more information about most of the pubspec fields.
Name
Every package needs a name. It’s how other packages refer to yours, and how it appears to the world, should you publish it.
The name should be all lowercase, with underscores to separate words,
just_like_this
. Use only basic Latin letters and Arabic digits:
[a-z0-9_]
. Also, make sure the name is a valid Dart identifier—that it
doesn’t start with digits and isn’t a
reserved word.
Try to pick a name that is clear, terse, and not already in use. A quick search of packages on the Pub site to make sure that nothing else is using your name is recommended.
Version
Every package has a version. A version number is required to host your package
on the Pub site, but can be omitted for local-only packages. If you omit
it, your package is implicitly versioned 0.0.0
.
Versioning is necessary for reusing code while letting it evolve quickly. A
version number is three numbers separated by dots, like 0.2.43
. It can also
optionally have a build (+hotfix.oopsie
) or pre-release (-alpha.12
) suffix.
Each time you publish your package, you publish it at a specific version. Once that’s been done, consider it hermetically sealed: you can’t touch it anymore. To make more changes, you’ll need a new version.
When you select a version, follow semantic versioning.
Description
This is optional for your own personal packages, but if you intend to publish your package you must provide a description. This should be relatively short—a few sentences, maybe a whole paragraph—and tells a casual reader what they might want to know about your package.
Think of the description as the sales pitch for your package. Users see it when they browse for packages. It should be simple plain text: no markdown or HTML. That’s what your README is for.
Author/Authors
You’re encouraged to use these fields to describe the author(s) of your package
and provide contact information. author
should be used if your package has a
single author, while authors
should be used with a YAML list if more than one
person wrote the package. Each author can either be a single name
(Natalie Weizenbaum
) or a name and an email address
(Natalie Weizenbaum <[email protected]>
). For example:
authors: - Natalie Weizenbaum <[email protected]> - Bob Nystrom <[email protected]>
If anyone uploads your package to the Pub site, your email address is public.
Homepage
This should be a URL pointing to the website for your package.
For hosted packages,
this URL is linked from the package’s page.
While providing a homepage
is optional, please provide it or repository
(or both). It helps users understand where your package is coming from.
Repository
The optional repository
field should contain the URL for your package’s source
code repository — for example, https://github.com/<user>/<repository>
.
If you publish your package to the Pub site, then your package’s page
displays the repository URL.
While providing a repository
is optional, please provide it or homepage
(or both). It helps users understand where your package is coming from.
Issue tracker
The optional issue_tracker
field should contain a URL for the package’s
issue tracker, where existing bugs can be viewed and new bugs can be filed.
The Pub site attempts to display a link to each package’s issue
tracker, using the value of this field. If issue_tracker
is missing but
repository
is present and points to GitHub, then the Pub site uses the
default issue tracker (https://github.com/<user>/<repository>/issues
).
Documentation
Some packages may have a site that hosts documentation separate from the main
homepage. If your package has that, you can also add a documentation:
field
with that URL. If provided, a link to it is shown on your package’s page.
If you specify the documentation:
field with a blank value,
documentation is created automatically for you, and is linked to from the
Pub site.
Dependencies
Dependencies are the pubspec’s raison d’être. In this section you list each package that your package needs in order to work.
Dependencies fall into one of two types. Regular dependencies are listed
under dependencies:
—these are packages that anyone using your package
will also need. Dependencies that are only needed in the development phase of
the package itself are listed under dev_dependencies
.
During the development process, you might need to temporarily override
a dependency. You can do so using dependency_overrides
.
For more information, see Pub Dependencies.
Executables
A package may expose one or more of its scripts as executables that
can be run directly from the command line. To make a script publicly
available, list it under the executables
field.
Entries are listed as key/value pairs:
<name-of-executable>: <Dart-script-from-bin>
For example, the following pubspec entry lists two scripts:
executables: polymer-new-element: new_element useful-script:
Once the package is activated using pub global activate
,
typing polymer-new-element
executes bin/new_element.dart
.
Typing useful-script
executes bin/useful-script.dart
.
If you don’t specify the value, it is inferred from the key.
For more information, see pub global.
Publish_to
The default uses the Pub site. Specify none
to prevent
a package from being published. This setting can be used to specify a
custom pub package server
to publish.
publish_to: none
SDK constraints
A package can indicate which versions of its dependencies it supports, but packages have another implicit dependency: the Dart platform itself. The Dart platform evolves over time, and a package might only work with certain versions of the platform.
A package can specify those versions using an SDK constraint. This
constraint goes inside a separate top-level environment
field in the pubspec
and uses the same
version constraint syntax as
dependencies.
For example, the following constraint says that this package works with any Dart 2 SDK that’s version 2.0.0 or higher:
environment: sdk: '>=2.0.0 <3.0.0'
Pub tries to find the latest version of a package whose SDK constraint works with the version of the Dart SDK that you have installed.
Flutter SDK constraints
As of Dart 1.19.0,
pub supports Flutter SDK constraints under the environment:
field:
environment: sdk: '>=1.19.0 <3.0.0' flutter: ^0.1.2
A Flutter SDK constraint is satisfied only if pub is running in the
context of the flutter
executable, and the Flutter SDK’s
version
file matches the given version constraint. Otherwise,
the package will not be selected.
To publish a package with a Flutter SDK constraint, you must specify a Dart SDK constraint with a minimum version of at least 1.19.0, to ensure that older versions of pub won’t accidentally install packages that need Flutter.