[Linux] “Add SDK to PATH” creates ~/.bash_profile instead of updating ~/.bashrc #6182

Description

When installing Flutter through VS Code on Ubuntu, I clicked Add SDK to PATH after the SDK installation completed.

The extension reported that Flutter had been added successfully, but flutter was not available in a newly opened VS Code integrated terminal.

I found that the extension had created a new ``~/.bash_profile` containing only:

export PATH="/home/<user>/develop/flutter/bin:$PATH"

~/.bash_profile did not exist before this action. My home directory already contained the normal Ubuntu ~/.profile and ~/.bashrc files.

Steps to reproduce

1. Use Ubuntu with /bin/bash as the default shell.

2. Have ~/.profile and ~/.bashrc, but no ~/.bash_profile.

3. Install Flutter using the VS Code Flutter installation workflow.

4. Click Add SDK to PATH.

5. Open a new VS Code integrated terminal.

6. Run:

   command -v flutter

Actual behavior

The extension creates ~/.bash_profile and adds the Flutter SDK path there.

A normal VS Code Bash terminal is an interactive non-login shell and reads ~/.bashrc, not ~/.bash_profile, so Flutter is not added to its PATH.

Creating ~/.bash_profile also changes Bash login behavior. Bash reads the first available file from ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile. Therefore, creating this new file can prevent the user's existing ~/.profile from being read by Bash login shells.

Expected behavior

On Linux with Bash, the extension should follow the Flutter Linux documentation and add the SDK path to ~/.bashrc.

Alternatively, it should avoid creating ~/.bash_profile when that file does not already exist and select an appropriate existing startup file without shadowing ~/.profile.

Relevant implementation and documentation

The current implementation explicitly returns .bash_profile when $SHELL is Bash:

Flutter’s Linux installation documentation instructs Bash users to update ~/.bashrc:

https://docs.flutter.dev/install/add-to-path#linux

Bash startup-file behavior is documented here:

https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Bash-Startup-Files.html

The Linux support appears to have been introduced in:

#5711

Environment

• OS: Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS
• Shell: /bin/bash
• VS Code: 1.137.0
• Dart extension: 3.142.0
• Flutter extension: 3.142.0

Workaround

Moving the Flutter PATH entry to ~/.bashrc resolves the issue:

export PATH="$HOME/develop/flutter/bin:$PATH"