dart pub global

Global is one of the commands of the pub tool.

Pub’s global option allows you to run Dart scripts from the command line when you are not currently inside a package. After activating a package, you can run scripts from that package’s bin directory. Deactivating a package removes it from your list of globally available packages.

For example, say you want to use webdev to serve your Dart web application from the command line.

$ dart pub global activate webdev
$ webdev serve

If this doesn’t work, you might need to set up your path.

To run a Dart script from within a package, or from a package that your package depends on, see dart run.

Activating a package

dart pub global activate [--noexecutables] [--executable=<name>] [--overwrite] <package> [version-constraint]

Activate a package when you want to be able to run one or more of its executable files from the command line. You can activate packages that live on the pub.dev site, a Git repository, or your local machine. Once you’ve activated a package, see Running a script to run scripts from the package’s bin directory.

When you activate a package you can specify an optional version constraint. See the constraint flag for usage examples.

Activating a package on the pub.dev site

$ dart pub global activate <pub.dev package>

Specify a package on the pub.dev site to activate it. For example:

$ dart pub global activate markdown

Activating a package with Git

$ dart pub global activate --source git <Git URL>
$ dart pub global activate -sgit <Git URL>

Use --source git (or -sgit, for short) to activate a package in a Git repository. The following examples, which activate the async_await package on GitHub, are equivalent:

$ dart pub global activate --source git https://github.com/dart-lang/async_await.git
$ dart pub global activate -sgit https://github.com/dart-lang/async_await.git

Pub expects to find the package in the root of the Git repository. To specify a different location, use the --git-path option with a path relative to the repository root:

$ dart pub global activate -sgit https://github.com/dart-lang/http.git --git-path pkgs/http/

Activating a package on your local machine

$ dart pub global activate --source path <path>

Use activate --source path <path> to activate a package on your local machine. The following example activates the stopwatch package from the ~/dart directory:

$ dart pub global activate --source path ~/dart/stopwatch

Updating an activated package

Once a package has been activated, you can upgrade it by activating the package again.

Running a script

You can directly run a script from an activated package from the command line. If you are unable to run the script directly, you can also use dart pub global run.

Running a script from your PATH

To run a script directly from the command line, add the system cache bin directory to your PATH environment variable.

For example, say you’ve activated the webdev package, but you still can’t run the command:

$ dart pub global activate webdev
$ webdev serve
-bash: webdev: command not found

Verify that the bin directory for the system cache is in your path. The following PATH variable, on macOS, includes the system cache:

$ echo $PATH
/Users/<user>/homebrew/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:[!/Users/<user>/.pub-cache/bin!]

If this directory is missing from your PATH, locate the file for your platform and add it.

^* The exact location of the system cache may vary for different versions of Windows.

You can now directly invoke the command:

$ cd web_project
$ webdev serve

If the script still fails to run from the command line, the package may not be configured for this feature. You can still run the script using dart pub global run.

Running a script using dart pub global run

$ dart pub global run <package>:<executable> [args...]

Even if a script is not configured to be run from the command line, you can still use dart pub global run. The following command runs the bin/bar.dart script from the foo package, passing in two arguments.

$ dart pub global run foo:bar arg1 arg2

Configuring package executables

If you are not a package developer, you can skip this section.

A package can expose some of its scripts as executables that can be run directly from the command line. The script or scripts must be listed in the executables entry of the pubspec file. For example, the following pubspec file identifies bin/helloworld.dart as an executable for the helloworld package:

name: helloworld

executables:
  helloworld:

Failing to list a script under the executables tag reduces the script’s usability: unlisted scripts can be executed using dart pub global run, but not directly from the command line.

Deactivating a package

$ dart pub global deactivate <package>

Use deactivate to remove a package from the list of available global packages. For example:

$ dart pub global deactivate markdown

You can no longer invoke the package’s scripts using dart pub global run, or at the command line.

Listing active packages

$ dart pub global list

Use list to list all currently active packages.

Options

For options that apply to all pub commands, see Global options.

[version-constraint]

Use dart pub global activate <package> [version-constraint] to specify a specific version of the package. For example, the following command pulls the 0.6.0 version of the markdown package:

$ dart pub global activate markdown 0.6.0

If you specify a range, pub picks the best version that meets that constraint. For example:

$ dart pub global activate foo <3.0.0

--no-executables

Use dart pub global activate <package> --no-executables to globally activate the specified package, but not put any executables in bin. You have to use dart pub global run to run any executables.

--executable=<name> or -x <name>

Use with dart pub global activate to add the specified executable to your PATH. You can pass more than one of these flags.

For example, the following command adds bar and baz, (but not any other executables that foo might define) to your PATH.

$ dart pub global activate foo -x bar -x baz

--overwrite

Use dart pub global activate <package> --overwrite to overwrite any previously activated global executables with the same name. If you don’t specify this flag, the preexisting executable will not be replaced.