Prerequisites

You only need a few things installed on your machine before you can run the app. Modern Flutter is much friendlier than it used to be — you no longer need Android Studio just to build and run.

1. Flutter SDK

Follow the official installer for your platform: flutter.dev/docs/get-started/install. Pick your OS on that page and follow the steps as-is — the Flutter team keeps that page in sync with every SDK release, and it now handles most of the platform toolchain setup for you.

When it's done, verify with:

flutter doctor

Every category that applies to your target platforms should be green.

2. VS Code (recommended)

The whole workflow runs from VS Code — no Android Studio required.

1. Install VS Code.
2. Install the Flutter and Dart extensions from the marketplace.

From VS Code you can create emulators, pick a target device, run, debug, and hot-reload — everything Android Studio used to do.

3. Platform toolchains

You still need the underlying SDK for whichever platforms you ship:

• Android — the Android SDK. flutter doctor --android-licenses accepts the license terms; run it after installing. You can install Android Studio just for the SDK, or install sdkmanager standalone if you'd rather skip the IDE.
• iOS (macOS only) — install Xcode from the App Store and run it once so it can finish its component install.

flutter doctor tells you exactly what's missing.

4. FlutterFire CLI

Firebase files are generated with one command. Install the CLI globally:

dart pub global activate flutterfire_cli

You'll run flutterfire configure when you set up Firebase — see Configure → Firebase.

5. make

The workflow is driven by a Makefile. make ships with macOS and most Linux distros. On Windows, use WSL, or invoke the underlying scripts directly (they're plain bash — see scripts/env-sync.sh).

When flutter doctor is green for your target platforms, head back to the Quick start.