Description
Summary
dart run devtools_extensions build_and_copy produces extension builds that are CDN-configured (the default for flutter build web), yet copies the entire local canvaskit/ directory — every engine variant plus debug symbols — into extension/devtools/build/, and hardcodes --no-tree-shake-icons. The result is ~14 MB of published assets per package that the extension never fetches at runtime.
Since the extension build is published inside each package's pub archive, every package that ships a DevTools extension carries this weight, and every consumer downloads it on pub get.
Evidence
My package (kaisel): archive was 15 MB. After pruning build/canvaskit/ and rebuilding with icon tree-shaking, it is 1 MB, with no runtime behavior
change:
flutter_bootstrap.jsin the build referencesgstatic.com/flutter-canvaskit, so the localcanvaskit/files (canvaskit.wasm 6.9 MB, chromium/ 5.5 MB, skwasm_heavy 4.9 MB, experimental_webparagraph/ 3.9 MB, skwasm 3.4 MB, plus ~7 MB of.js.symbols) are never requested.- The build is
compileTarget: dart2js, so theskwasm*variants are unreachable regardless of CDN configuration. - Rebuilding without
--no-tree-shake-iconssucceeds — the compiler's own verification passed (it fails the build on non-constIconData) — and MaterialIcons went from 1,645,184 bytes to 9,040 bytes (99.5%).
Proposal
- Prune
build/canvaskit/in the copy step when the build is CDN-configured (the default). At minimum, always prune theskwasm*/ experimental variants for dart2js builds, where they are unreachable. If an author builds with--no-web-resources-cdn(e.g. for offline use — related: DevTools fails to load with no internet connection #4721), keepcanvaskit.wasm+chromium/canvaskit.wasmand drop only the unreachable variants and.js.symbols. - Expose a
--tree-shake-iconspassthrough (keeping today's--no-tree-shake-iconsas the default if desired). Tree-shaking is verified at compile time — it fails loudly when an extension constructsIconDatadynamically — so extensions that pass the check could opt into the ~1.6 MB saving safely.
Environment: devtools_extensions 0.5.1, Flutter 3.44.2 (Dart 3.12.2), macOS.
Activity
Reduce devtools extension build size via safe engine-asset pruning