darto-scaffold-project

Scaffold & run a Darto project

The official darto_cli scaffolds projects and provides dev/build tooling. Use it when starting a new app or wiring up run/build commands.

Install the CLI (once)

dart pub global activate darto_cli

Make sure ~/.pub-cache/bin is on your PATH (otherwise the darto command won't be found).

Create a project

darto create my_api
cd my_api
dart pub get

This generates a ready-to-run project with a NestJS-style module structure:

my_api/
  bin/server.dart            # entrypoint — boots the app and listens
  lib/
    app.dart                 # createApp() — registers modules/routes; CLI introspects this
    config/env.dart          # environment config
    modules/
      user/
        user_controller.dart # route handlers (Context-based)
        user_service.dart    # business logic
        user_repository.dart # data access
        user_routes.dart     # wires the module's routes onto a Router/group

Convention: one folder per module under lib/modules/, each splitting routes → controller → service → repository. New features = a new module folder following the same split, mounted in app.dart.

Develop with hot reload

darto dev                 # watches lib/, bin/, src/; auto-restarts on .dart change
darto dev bin/main.dart   # specify a custom entrypoint

Build for production

darto build                                   # compile to build/server + generate Dockerfile
darto build --output build/my_server --no-docker
darto start                                   # run the compiled binary

Generate a typed client (optional)

darto_cli can read createApp() from lib/app.dart, introspect every registered route, and emit a fully typed Dart/Flutter API client:

darto gen client flutter
darto gen client flutter --output lib/src/api_client.dart --base-url https://api.example.com

final api = ApiClient(baseUrl: 'https://api.example.com');
api.setToken(accessToken);
final users = await api.users.getAll();
final user  = await api.users.getById('42');