Release - CherryPick 3.x

Sergey Penkovsky — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 07:31:46 +0000

CherryPick — a lightweight and modular DI framework for Dart and Flutter that solves dependency injection through strong typing, code generation, and dependency control.

Version 3.x was recently released with significant improvements.

Main Changes in 3.x

O(1) dependency resolution — thanks to Map indexing of bindings, performance does not depend on the size of the scope in the DI graph. This provides noticeable speedup in large projects.
Protection against circular dependencies — checking works both within a single scope and across the entire hierarchy. When a cycle is detected, an informative exception with the dependency chain is thrown.
Integration with Talker — all DI events (registration, creation, deletion, errors) are logged and can be displayed in the console or UI.
Automatic resource cleanup — objects implementing Disposable are properly released when the scope is closed.
Stabilized declarative approach support — annotations and code generation now work more reliably and are more convenient for use in projects.

Resource Cleanup Example

class MyServiceWithSocket implements Disposable {
  @override
  Future<void> dispose() async {
    await socket.close();
    print('Socket closed!');
  }
}

class AppModule extends Module {
  @override
  void builder(Scope currentScope) {
    // singleton Api
    bind<MyServiceWithSocket>()
      .toProvide(() => MyServiceWithSocket())
      .singleton();
  }
}

scope.installModules([AppModule()]);

await CherryPick.closeRootScope(); // will wait for async dispose to complete

Circular Dependency Checking

One of the new features in CherryPick 3.x is built-in cycle protection.
This helps catch situations early where services start depending on each other recursively.

How to Enable Checking

For checking within a single scope:

final scope = CherryPick.openRootScope();
scope.enableCycleDetection();

For global checking across the entire hierarchy:

CherryPick.enableGlobalCycleDetection();
CherryPick.enableGlobalCrossScopeCycleDetection();
final rootScope = CherryPick.openRootScope();

How a Cycle Can Occur

Suppose we have two services that depend on each other:

class UserService {
  final OrderService orderService;
  UserService(this.orderService);
}

class OrderService {
  final UserService userService;
  OrderService(this.userService);
}

If we register them in the same scope:

class AppModule extends Module {
  @override
  void builder(Scope currentScope) {
    bind<UserService>().toProvide(() => UserService(scope.resolve()));
    bind<OrderService>().toProvide(() => OrderService(scope.resolve()));
  }
}

final scope = CherryPick.openRootScope()
  ..enableCycleDetection()
  ..installModules([AppModule()]);

scope.resolve<UserService>();

Then when trying to resolve the dependency, an exception will be thrown:

❌ Circular dependency detected for UserService
Dependency chain: UserService -> OrderService -> UserService

This way, the error is detected immediately, not "somewhere in runtime".

Integration with Talker

CherryPick 3.x allows logging all DI events through Talker: registration, object creation, deletion, and errors. This is convenient for debugging and diagnosing the dependency graph.

Connection example:

final talker = Talker();
final observer = TalkerCherryPickObserver(talker);
CherryPick.setGlobalObserver(observer);

After this, DI events will be displayed in the console or UI:

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
│ [info]    9:41:33  | [scope opened][CherryPick] scope_1757054493089_7072
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
│ [verbose] 9:41:33  | [diagnostic][CherryPick] Scope created: scope_1757054493089_7072 {type: Scope, name: scope_1757054493089_7072, description: scope created}
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

In the log, you can see when scopes are created, which objects are registered and deleted, and catch errors and cycles in real time.

Declarative Approach with Annotations

In addition to fully programmatic module descriptions, CherryPick supports declarative DI style through annotations.

This allows minimizing manual code and automatically generating modules and mixins for automatic dependency injection.

Example of a declarative module:

@module()
abstract class AppModule extends Module {
  @provide()
  @singleton()
  Api api() => Api();

  @provide()
  Repo repo(Api api) => Repo(api);
}

After code generation, you can automatically inject dependencies into widgets or services:

@injectable()
class MyScreen extends StatelessWidget with _$MyScreen {
  @inject()
  late final Repo repo;

  MyScreen() {
    _inject(this);
  }
}

This way you can choose an approach in development: programmatic (imperative) with explicit dependency registration or declarative through annotations.

Who Might Find CherryPick Useful?

Projects where it's important to guarantee no cycles in the dependency graph;
Teams that want to minimize manual DI code and use a declarative style with annotations;
Applications that require automatic resource cleanup (sockets, controllers, streams).

Useful Links

📦 Package: pub.dev/packages/cherrypick
💻 Code: github.com/pese-git/cherrypick
📖 Documentation: cherrypick-di.netlify.app

DEV Community: Sergey Penkovsky