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Many Lints

avoid_banned_annotations

v1.0.0WarningConfigurableArchitecture

Flags annotations you ban, optionally only inside the directories you name. The motivating case is scope: @visibleForTesting is reasonable on a helper and wrong in a production directory.

This rule reports nothing until you configure it.

Why use this rule

Section titled “Why use this rule”

@visibleForTesting is a way of saying “this is private, except to tests”. That is a fair trade in a utility, but in a core production type it is how encapsulation erodes: the annotation makes the widening explicit without making it rare, and nothing pushes back when the next test wants one more member.

Banning it in the directories that hold your most-depended-on code forces the alternative — inject the seam the test needs rather than opening the type — while leaving it available everywhere else.

See also: package:meta annotations, visibleForTesting API docs

Don’t

Section titled “Don’t”
// in lib/production/payment_service.dart
//
// With an entry banning 'visibleForTesting' in lib/production/**:
class PaymentService {
  @visibleForTesting  // LINT: widens visibility in production code
  void resetLedger() {}
}

Do

Section titled “Do”
// in lib/production/payment_service.dart
//
// Inject what the test needs to control instead of exposing internals.
abstract class Ledger {
  void reset();
}


class PaymentService {
  const PaymentService(this._ledger);


  final Ledger _ledger;


  void refundAll() => _ledger.reset();
}

Turning this rule off

Section titled “Turning this rule off”

This rule is in no preset, so it is off unless you enable it by name:

many_lints.yaml
rules:
  avoid_banned_annotations: true

To turn it off again:

many_lints.yaml
rules:
  avoid_banned_annotations: false

To keep the rule on but skip certain paths, use per-rule exclude.

Options

Section titled “Options”
analysis_options.yaml
many_lints:
  rules:
    avoid_banned_annotations:
      banned:
        - deny: ['visibleForTesting']
          in: ['lib/production/**']
          message: 'Production code must not widen visibility for tests.'
Option Type Default Description
banned list of maps [] The entries to enforce. With none, the rule reports nothing

Each entry accepts:

Key Type Required Description
deny string or list one of deny / deny_pattern Annotation names banned by exact match, written without the @
deny_pattern string or list one of deny / deny_pattern Regular expressions, anchored to the whole name
in list of globs no Paths, relative to the package root, where the entry applies. Omit to apply everywhere
message string no A project-specific explanation appended to the diagnostic

Write the annotation name without the @. Both @visibleForTesting and the prefixed @meta.visibleForTesting match a single visibleForTesting entry, so an import prefix cannot slip past the rule.

Section titled “Related rules”