Agentic Hot Reload: when your coding agent reloads the running app
The old AI loop was: paste error → agent edits file → you manually r in the terminal. Agentic Hot Reload removes the last step. The Dart/Flutter MCP server helps agents find and connect to a running app, then trigger reload after an edit.
The new loop
flutter run(debug) with the MCP server available to your agent.- Prompt: “make the login button cyan and larger.”
- Agent edits Dart, triggers reload, you judge the pixels.
No extra glue scripts. Dependency search is hardened so agents can read package sources without full pub-cache access, and tool definitions were consolidated to cut token cost.
Practical setup tips
- Keep one debug session per device you care about; agents attach to what is running.
- Prefer small UI-scoped prompts — Agentic Hot Reload rewards incremental diffs.
- Pair with Agent Skills so the agent follows your architecture instead of inventing a new one.
Limits
Hot reload is not hot restart. State and native-channel changes still need a restart. If the agent’s change does not appear, check that the session is still connected and that the edit was in a reloadable library (not main() reordering that requires restart).