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Flutter › Flutter Architecture Patterns (MVVM & Clean Architecture)

What are the practical tradeoffs of adopting a genuinely full, strict Clean Architecture approach for a Flutter app, in terms of both the additional required boilerplate code and the genuine long term maintainability benefits it actually provides?

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Answer

Adopting a genuinely full, strict Clean Architecture approach typically requires noticeably more upfront boilerplate code, such as defining separate abstract repository interfaces, individual dedicated use case classes, and distinct data models for each of the separate presentation, domain, and data layers, which can meaningfully slow down initial development for a smaller or simpler application, but this same additional upfront structure generally pays off considerably as an application's genuine complexity and overall codebase size grow substantially over time, since the resulting clear separation of distinct concerns makes the codebase considerably easier to test thoroughly, to onboard new developers into effectively, and to safely and confidently modify without unintentionally introducing new far reaching, unexpected bugs elsewhere.
// Full Clean Architecture: significantly more files, but clearer separation
// domain/entities/order.dart
// domain/repositories/order_repository.dart
// domain/usecases/place_order_usecase.dart
// data/repositories/order_repository_impl.dart
Real-world example A startup building an early stage minimum viable product deliberately chooses a considerably lighter weight architecture initially to genuinely maximize their development speed, explicitly planning to properly adopt a more full, strict Clean Architecture approach only later, once their product has actually found genuine, sustained market traction.

Common follow-ups: How do you properly decide on an appropriate level of architectural strictness for a specific given project's actual needs?;Can a Flutter app reasonably adopt some, but genuinely not all, of Clean Architecture's core principles?