Flutter projects nested more than 2 levels deep do not force "Flutter mode", preventing launching/debugging apps

Folder structure

• /monorepo_root
  • apps
    • app1
      • lib/main.dart
    • app2
      • lib/main.dart

Works

1. File > Open Folder (app1)
2. Start Debugging

Doesn’t work

1. File > Open Folder (monorepo_root)
2. In Explorer right click on app1/lib/main.dart
3. Select Start Debugging

lib/main.dart:1: Warning: Interpreting this as package URI, 'package:app1/main.dart'.
file:///C:/src/flutter/packages/flutter/lib/src/material/animated_icons.dart:9:8: Error: Not found: 'dart:ui'
import 'dart:ui' as ui show Paint, Path, Canvas;
       ^
file:///C:/src/flutter/packages/flutter/lib/src/material/animated_icons.dart:10:8: Error: Not found: 'dart:ui'
import 'dart:ui' show lerpDouble;
       ^
file:///C:/src/flutter/packages/flutter/lib/src/material/app.dart:5:8: Error: Not found: 'dart:ui'
import 'dart:ui' as ui;
       ^
file:///C:/src/flutter/packages/flutter/lib/src/material/app_bar_theme.dart:5:8: Error: Not found: 'dart:ui'
import 'dart:ui' show lerpDouble;
       ^
file:///C:/src/flutter/packages/flutter/lib/src/material/arc.dart:6:8: Error: Not found: 'dart:ui'
import 'dart:ui' show lerpDouble;
       ^
file:///C:/src/flutter/packages/flutter/lib/src/material/bottom_app_bar_theme.dart:5:8: Error: Not found: 'dart:ui'
import 'dart:ui' show lerpDouble;
       ^
file:///C:/src/flutter/packages/flutter/lib/src/material/card_theme.dart:5:8: Error: Not found: 'dart:ui'
import 'dart:ui' show lerpDouble;
       ^
file:///C:/src/flutter/packages/flutter/lib/src/material/chip_theme.dart:5:8: Error: Not found: 'dart:ui'
import 'dart:ui' show lerpDouble;
       ^
file:///C:/src/flutter/packages/flutter/lib/src/material/colors.dart:5:8: Error: Not found: 'dart:ui'
import 'dart:ui' show Color;
       ^
file:///C:/src/flutter/packages/flutter/lib/src/material/dialog_theme.dart:5:8: Error: Not found: 'dart:ui'
import 'dart:ui' show lerpDouble;
       ^
Exited (sigint)

[DanTup]

Thanks for the update! I’ll keep this open because I think we should do a better job of guiding people here (the error when trying to run a Flutter project on the Dart VM is cryptic for one), even if it’s just detecting the failure and linking them to a page/issue that describes the above.

[DanTup]

This is expected right now. When deciding whether to load the Flutter SDK or Dart SDK, we look two levels down to see if there’s a Flutter project, and if not, we go into “Dart Mode”.

If you can’t open a folder closer to the apps, the best current fix is to click File -> Add Folder to Workspace and then select your app1/app2 folders which will show them in the Explorer tree as “Workspace Folders”. Unfortunately, this means they will appear in two places in the tree - there is a request to fix that in VS Code at https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/45470 (please add a 👍 ).

We could scan further down the tree looking for Flutter projects at startup, but it would slow down startup (significantly for those opening large trees) and doing it this way also prevents you from having your own settings/launch configs within each of the apps folders.