Update May 27, 2026

• When [web, tool] Support recompiling shaders and unify asset processing (2nd try) #186902 lands the following will support hot reload on the web
  • Images
  • JSON, Text, Data Files

Missing bits

• Fonts
• Shaders

Although these should work with hot restart

Use case

Hot-reload on the web doesn't reload assets. It would be great if we could improve the development cycle, since it could make working with shaders easier for Flutter web apps. It's probably not as common to edit images but this would be great to support too.

Steps to reproduce

1. Create a flutter app with an image or shader asset

flutter:
  uses-material-design: true
  assets:
    - assets/images/image.jpg
  shaders:
    - assets/shaders/visualizer.frag

2. Use the image or shader in main.dart:

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

void main() {
  runApp(TestApp());
}

class TestApp extends StatelessWidget {
  const TestApp({super.key});

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return MaterialApp(
      home: Scaffold(
        body: Center(
          child: Image.asset('assets/images/image.jpg'),
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}

3. Run the app in a web browser
4. Replace the image or update the shader
5. Click hot restart in your IDE or press 'r' in the console
6. Observe the image or shader doesn't change.

Proposal

Re-load assets when when hot-restarting in a web browser