Forced Violation of Pub Layout Convention

[RohitSaily]

Dart SDK version: 3.8.0-24.0.dev (dev) (Wed Jan 22 12:05:43 2025 -0800) on "macos_x64"

This problem has to do with the analyzer_plugin package. The pub and pub.dev repositories may also be relevant.

Problem

A package which provides an analysis server plugin must have a bootstrap subpackage located in a tools folder. The bootstrapping does not work if the folder name is singular i.e. named tool. However, the package layout convention is to use tool for the folder name.

When uploading to pub the following warning is given.

* Rename the top-level "tools" directory to "tool".
  The Pub layout convention is to use singular directory names.
  Plural names won't be correctly identified by Pub and other tools.
  See https://dart.dev/tools/pub/package-layout.

Proposed Solutions

Either (1) have bootstrapping work from tool or (2) allow tools in the convention.

I believe option (1) is the way to go.

[bwilkerson]

Your point is valid.

However, the requirement to create a bootstrap subpackage in tools comes from a version of analyzer plugins that was never more than a proof-of-concept. It is not, and never has been, officially supported (despite being fairly widely used).

We are investigating a way to have a supported plugin mechanism, but it's not yet production ready. The new mechanism likely won't require having a boostrap package, so it shouldn't have the same issue, but we'll keep this in mind.

Given that the old mechanism isn't supported, I'm going to close this issue. We'll use our time getting to the new supported plugins mechanism rather than changing the old one.

[RohitSaily]

That makes sense. Thank you for informing me