Flutter GestureDetector, onTap gets triggered automatically, how to?

There's a problem in your code at this line:

onTap: _changeCell(index),

Basically, instead of setting onTap to a method, you're calling the method directly and setting onTap to the result of that call (null). Each time the widget builds, it will call the function.

What you should be doing is this:

onTap: () => _changeCell(index)

just change onTap: _changeCell(index) to onTap: () => _changeCell(index) . _changeCell(index) this returns null and you setting null to onTap and calling the same function .

below code is for this

I played around a little bit.

    import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

void main() {
  runApp(new MaterialApp(
    home: new DemoScreen(),
  ));
}

class DemoScreen extends StatefulWidget {
  @override
  _DemoScreenState createState() => new _DemoScreenState();
}

class _DemoScreenState extends State<DemoScreen> {
  Color cellColor = Colors.white;

  Text _getText(index) {
    Text text;
    switch (index) {
      case 0:
        text = new Text('lightBlue');
        break;
      case 1:
        text = new Text('red');
        break;
      case 2:
        text = new Text('green');
        break;
      case 3:
        text = new Text('yellow');
        break;
      case 4:
        text = new Text('orange');
        break;
      default:
        text = new Text('brown');
        break;
    }

    return text;
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return new Scaffold(
      appBar: new AppBar(
        title: new Text("Demo App"),
      ),
      body: new GridView.count(
        crossAxisCount: 5,
        children: new List.generate(5, (index) {
          return new MyWidget(
            index: index,
            color: cellColor,
            text: _getText(index),
          );
        }),
      ),
    );
  }
}

class MyWidget extends StatefulWidget {
  final Color color;
  final Text text;
  final int index;

  MyWidget({this.color, this.text, this.index});

  @override
  _MyWidgetState createState() => new _MyWidgetState();
}

class _MyWidgetState extends State<MyWidget> {
  Color cellColor = Colors.white;
  Text cellText = new Text('white');

  @override
  void initState() {
    super.initState();
    cellColor = widget.color;
    cellText = widget.text;
  }

  _changeCell(index) {
    setState(() {
      switch (index) {
        case 0:
          cellColor = Colors.lightBlue;
          cellText = new Text('lightBlue');
          break;
        case 1:
          cellColor = Colors.red;
          cellText = new Text('red');
          break;
        case 2:
          cellColor = Colors.green;
          cellText = new Text('green');
          break;
        case 3:
          cellColor = Colors.yellow;
          cellText = new Text('yellow');
          break;
        case 4:
          cellColor = Colors.orange;
          cellText = new Text('orange');
          break;
        default:
          cellColor = Colors.brown;
          cellText = new Text('brown');
          break;
      }
    });
    print("Container clicked " + index.toString());
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return new GestureDetector(
      onTap: () => _changeCell(widget.index),
      child: new Container(
        margin: new EdgeInsets.symmetric(horizontal: 1.0),
        width: double.infinity,
        height: double.infinity,
        decoration: new BoxDecoration(
          color: cellColor,
        ),
        child: new Center(
          child: cellText,
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}

Hope it helps :)