# Using Dart & Flutter Packages from a Private Git Repo

# Problem

We want to use Dart/Flutter packages from a private git repo on Github. 

The following article will show you how.



# Set up SSH client

To authenticate ourselves into the private repo, we will need to use the SSH protocol.

## Mac and Linux

Mac and Linux usually has an ssh client configured. If not present, you can install one with your system's a package manager (apt, dnf, pacman, brew etc..) .

## Windows 10

UPDATE: It seems the latest versions of Windows have ssh ready for use.

Windows 10 has a built-in OpenSSH client. But it must be activated first. Check here: https://www.howtogeek.com/336775/how-to-enable-and-use-windows-10s-built-in-ssh-commands/

Powershell also has a built-in ssh client.



# Set up SSH Keys on Github

We need to associate an SSH key to provide authentication to the private repo.

- Sign in to your github account that has access to the private repo
- Go to https://github.com/settings/keys and add your public SSH key into your account

## Generating SSH Keys

If you don't have an SSH key, you can generate one. For simplicity's sake, we will  create one that doesn't have a passphrase, as doing so would require extra work to make it automatic (setting up ssh-agent on Linux/Mac).

### Mac and Linux and Windows using Powershell

- Run `ssh-keygen` on your terminal
- Specify a name for this keypair, in this example we use the name `my_key`
- For now skip the process where it asks for a passphrase
- This will create a two keys, a public key (`my_key.pub`) and private key (`my_key`). 


### Windows 10

- https://phoenixnap.com/kb/generate-ssh-key-windows-10

# Set up SSH config on your local machine

In the `.ssh` folder, where your public and private keys are stored by default, lives a `config` file.

This file will help our git client manage our connection to remote git hosts (like Github, Bitbucket, Gitlab etc) when we clone using SSH.

Here we can set it up to associate an *Identity File* (a private/pub key pair) to a specific host.

Open the `ssh/.config` file. It can be found below:

### Mac and Linux

`$HOME/.ssh/config`

## Windows 

`C:\Users\your_username\.ssh\config`



Add the following snippet to your `.ssh/config` file:

```config
# Using your company key
Host github.com
	HostName github.com
	PreferredAuthentications publickey
	User git
	IdentityFile ~/.ssh/my_key
```

- `Host` can mean anything. It's just used for us to separate between different accounts we use on, say, GitHub.
- `HostName` is the location of the remote git host in our case it's `github.com`
- `PreferredAuthentications` tells your client to use public key authentication first, before password based authentication
- `User` has to be git when authenticating with Github
- `IdentityFile` is the location of your private key.

# Check if you can clone the private repo

If you can clone the private repo, it means you are authenticated.


# Use the package as a dependency 

In your Flutter project, open the `pubspec.yaml`

Under `dependencies`, you can add your private flutter package located in your repository.

```config
dependencies:
  my_test_package:
   git:
     url: git@github.com:my_company_repo/my_test_package.git
```

Run `flutter pub get` and the package should be available for use in the project.

## Specifying a version

There's no direct versioning system when using a git package dependency. However, we can specify which branch, or tag, or commit hash to pull from.

```config
dependencies:
  my_test_package:
   git:
     url: git@github.com:my_company_repo/my_test_package.git
     ref: master
```

The `ref` property can have a branch, tag or a specific commit hash.

You can read more about this spec here:
https://flutter.dev/docs/development/packages-and-plugins/