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Antoinegtir edited this page May 20, 2026 · 1 revision

FAQ

General

Is my IDE affected?

No. flutter-cli only wraps flutter run. Your IDE (VS Code, Android Studio, IntelliJ) continues to use its own run configuration and VM Service connection. You can use flutter-cli and your IDE side-by-side — they won't conflict as long as they target different devices or use different ports.

Does it work with VS Code / Android Studio hot reload?

Yes. flutter-cli uses the same Flutter VM Service protocol as IDEs. Hot reload from flutter-cli and your IDE both work; they're independent clients.

What does the shell shim actually do?

It places a tiny script called flutter earlier in your PATH than the real Flutter SDK binary. When you run flutter run, the script calls flutter-cli run instead. All other flutter sub-commands are forwarded to the real binary unchanged. See Shell Shim for details.


Compatibility

Which Flutter versions are supported?

Flutter 3.0 and above. flutter-cli uses the VM Service ext.flutter.* RPCs which have been stable since Flutter 3.

Does it work with Dart-only projects?

Not currently. flutter-cli is designed around Flutter's flutter run output format and VM Service extensions. Plain Dart CLI apps are not supported.

Does it work on Windows?

Yes. Download the Windows binary from the Releases page or use npx @antoinegtir/flutter-cli. Windows Terminal is recommended for the best TUI experience.

Does it work inside Docker / CI?

Yes. In non-interactive environments (no TTY), flutter-cli automatically disables the TUI and streams plain log output. Pass --no-tui to force this behaviour.


Devices

Can I target a specific device by name instead of ID?

flutter-cli run -d "Pixel 7"

Partial name matching is supported. If multiple devices match, you'll be shown a picker.

Does it support wireless debugging (Wi-Fi ADB)?

Yes — pair and connect your device with adb pair / adb connect as usual, then flutter-cli sees it just like a USB device.

How many devices can I run at once?

There's no hard limit. Each device spawns an independent flutter run process and gets its own TUI panel. In practice, 4–6 devices is comfortable on a typical laptop screen.


Privacy & telemetry

Does flutter-cli collect any data?

No. flutter-cli has no telemetry, analytics, or network calls beyond connecting to your own devices' VM Service endpoints. It never phones home.


Comparison

How is this different from flutter run?

flutter run only targets one device at a time and streams raw log output. flutter-cli adds:

  • Multi-device support in a single terminal window
  • Live network / HTTP inspector
  • Structured log filtering and search
  • One-key hot reload across all devices
  • Screenshot capture from the keyboard

How is this different from FlutterFire Console / Crashlytics?

Those are cloud services for production crash reporting. flutter-cli is a local development tool — it works entirely offline on your machine.