flutter-reducing-app-size

SKILL.md

Reducing Flutter App Size

Contents

Core Concepts

Workflow: Generating Size Analysis Files

Workflow: Analyzing Size Data in DevTools

Workflow: Estimating iOS Download Size

Workflow: Implementing Size Reduction Strategies

Examples

Core Concepts

Debug vs. Release: Never use debug builds to measure app size. Debug builds include VM overhead and lack Ahead-Of-Time (AOT) compilation and tree-shaking.

Upload vs. Download Size: The size of an upload package (APK, AAB, IPA) does not represent the end-user download size. App stores filter redundant native library architectures and asset densities based on the target device.

AOT Tree-Shaking: The Dart AOT compiler automatically removes unused or unreachable code in profile and release modes.

Size Analysis JSON: The --analyze-size flag generates a *-code-size-analysis_*.json file detailing the byte size of packages, libraries, classes, and functions.

Workflow: Generating Size Analysis Files

Use this workflow to generate the raw data required for size analysis.