You've already learned how to use the command-line interface to do some things. This chapter documents all the available commands.
To get help from the command-line, call composer or composer list to see the complete list of commands, then --help combined with any of those can give you more information.
As Composer uses symfony/console you can call commands by short name if it's not ambiguous.
php composer.phar dump
calls composer dump-autoload.
To install bash completions you can run composer completion bash > completion.bash. This will create a completion.bash file in the current directory.
Then execute source completion.bash to enable it in the current terminal session.
Move and rename the completion.bash file to /etc/bash_completion.d/composer to make it load automatically in new terminals.
The following options are available with every command:
composer.json.In the Libraries chapter we looked at how to create a composer.json by hand. There is also an init command available to do this.
When you run the command it will interactively ask you to fill in the fields, while using some smart defaults.
php composer.phar init
foo/bar:1.0.0.minimum-stability field.composer repository or a JSON string which similar to what the repositories key accepts.The install command reads the composer.json file from the current directory, resolves the dependencies, and installs them into vendor.
php composer.phar install
If there is a composer.lock file in the current directory, it will use the exact versions from there instead of resolving them. This ensures that everyone using the library will get the same versions of the dependencies.
If there is no composer.lock file, Composer will create one after dependency resolution.
source and dist. Composer uses dist by default. If you pass --prefer-install=source (or --prefer-source) Composer will install from source if there is one. This is useful if you want to make a bugfix to a project and get a local git clone of the dependency directly. To get the legacy behavior where Composer use source automatically for dev versions of packages, use --prefer-install=auto. See also config.preferred-install. Passing this flag will override the config value.--dry-run. This will simulate the installation and show you what would happen.require-dev (this is the default behavior).require-dev. The autoloader generation skips the autoload-dev rules. Also see COMPOSER_NO_DEV.--optimize-autoloader.--apcu-autoloader.php, hhvm, lib-* and ext-*) and force the installation even if the local machine does not fulfill these. See also the platform config option.php, hhvm, lib-* and ext-*) and force the installation even if the local machine does not fulfill it. Multiple requirements can be ignored via wildcard. Appending a + makes it only ignore the upper-bound of the requirements. For example, if a package requires php: ^7, then the option --ignore-platform-req=php+ would allow installing on PHP 8, but installation on PHP 5.6 would still fail.In order to get the latest versions of the dependencies and to update the composer.lock file, you should use the update command. This command is also aliased as upgrade as it does the same as upgrade does if you are thinking of apt-get or similar package managers.
php composer.phar update
This will resolve all dependencies of the project and write the exact versions into composer.lock.
If you only want to update a few packages and not all, you can list them as such:
php composer.phar update vendor/package vendor/package2
You can also use wildcards to update a bunch of packages at once:
php composer.phar update "vendor/*"
If you want to downgrade a package to a specific version without changing your composer.json you can use --with and provide a custom version constraint:
php composer.phar update --with vendor/package:2.0.1
Note that with the above all packages will be updated. If you only want to update the package(s) for which you provide custom constraints using --with, you can skip --with and instead use constraints with the partial update syntax:
php composer.phar update vendor/package:2.0.1 vendor/package2:3.0.*
The custom constraint has to be a subset of the existing constraint you have, and this feature is only available for your root package dependencies.
source and dist. Composer uses dist by default. If you pass --prefer-install=source (or --prefer-source) Composer will install from source if there is one. This is useful if you want to make a bugfix to a project and get a local git clone of the dependency directly. To get the legacy behavior where Composer use source automatically for dev versions of packages, use --prefer-install=auto. See also config.preferred-install. Passing this flag will override the config value.require-dev (this is the default behavior).require-dev. The autoloader generation skips the autoload-dev rules. Also see COMPOSER_NO_DEV.--optimize-autoloader.--apcu-autoloader.php, hhvm, lib-* and ext-*) and force the installation even if the local machine does not fulfill these. See also the platform config option.php, hhvm, lib-* and ext-*) and force the installation even if the local machine does not fulfill it. Multiple requirements can be ignored via wildcard. Appending a + makes it only ignore the upper-bound of the requirements. For example, if a package requires php: ^7, then the option --ignore-platform-req=php+ would allow installing on PHP 8, but installation on PHP 5.6 would still fail.--prefer-stable. Can also be set via the COMPOSER_PREFER_LOWEST=1 env var.Specifying one of the words mirrors, lock, or nothing as an argument has the same effect as specifying the option --lock, for example composer update mirrors is exactly the same as composer update --lock.
The require command adds new packages to the composer.json file from the current directory. If no file exists one will be created on the fly.
php composer.phar require
After adding/changing the requirements, the modified requirements will be installed or updated.
If you do not want to choose requirements interactively, you can pass them to the command.
php composer.phar require "vendor/package:2.*" vendor/package2:dev-master
If you do not specify a package, Composer will prompt you to search for a package, and given results, provide a list of matches to require.
require-dev.source and dist. Composer uses dist by default. If you pass --prefer-install=source (or --prefer-source) Composer will install from source if there is one. This is useful if you want to make a bugfix to a project and get a local git clone of the dependency directly. To get the legacy behavior where Composer use source automatically for dev versions of packages, use --prefer-install=auto. See also config.preferred-install. Passing this flag will override the config value.--no-dev option. Also see COMPOSER_NO_DEV.php, hhvm, lib-* and ext-*) and force the installation even if the local machine does not fulfill these. See also the platform config option.php, hhvm, lib-* and ext-*) and force the installation even if the local machine does not fulfill it. Multiple requirements can be ignored via wildcard.--prefer-stable. Can also be set via the COMPOSER_PREFER_LOWEST=1 env var.composer.json.--optimize-autoloader.--apcu-autoloader.The remove command removes packages from the composer.json file from the current directory.
php composer.phar remove vendor/package vendor/package2
After removing the requirements, the modified requirements will be uninstalled.
require-dev.php, hhvm, lib-* and ext-*) and force the installation even if the local machine does not fulfill these. See also the platform config option.php, hhvm, lib-* and ext-*) and force the installation even if the local machine does not fulfill it. Multiple requirements can be ignored via wildcard.--optimize-autoloader.--apcu-autoloader.The bump command increases the lower limit of your composer.json requirements to the currently installed versions. This helps to ensure your dependencies do not accidentally get downgraded due to some other conflict, and can slightly improve dependency resolution performance as it limits the amount of package versions Composer has to look at.
Running this blindly on libraries is NOT recommended as it will narrow down your allowed dependencies, which may cause dependency hell for your users. Running it with --dev-only on libraries may be fine however as dev requirements are local to the library and do not affect consumers of the package.
The reinstall command looks up installed packages by name, uninstalls them and reinstalls them. This lets you do a clean install of a package if you messed with its files, or if you wish to change the installation type using --prefer-install.
php composer.phar reinstall acme/foo acme/bar
You can specify more than one package name to reinstall, or use a wildcard to select several packages at once:
php composer.phar reinstall "acme/*"
source and dist. Composer uses dist by default. If you pass --prefer-install=source (or --prefer-source) Composer will install from source if there is one. This is useful if you want to make a bugfix to a project and get a local git clone of the dependency directly. To get the legacy behavior where Composer use source automatically for dev versions of packages, use --prefer-install=auto. See also config.preferred-install. Passing this flag will override the config value.--optimize-autoloader.--apcu-autoloader.The check-platform-reqs command checks that your PHP and extensions versions match the platform requirements of the installed packages. This can be used to verify that a production server has all the extensions needed to run a project after installing it for example.
Unlike update/install, this command will ignore config.platform settings and check the real platform packages so you can be certain you have the required platform dependencies.
The global command allows you to run other commands like install, remove, require or update as if you were running them from the COMPOSER_HOME directory.
This is merely a helper to manage a project stored in a central location that can hold CLI tools or Composer plugins that you want to have available everywhere.
This can be used to install CLI utilities globally. Here is an example:
php composer.phar global require friendsofphp/php-cs-fixer
Now the php-cs-fixer binary is available globally. Make sure your global vendor binaries directory is in your $PATH environment variable, you can get its location with the following command :
php composer.phar global config bin-dir --absolute
If you wish to update the binary later on you can run a global update:
php composer.phar global update
The search command allows you to search through the current project's package repositories. Usually this will be packagist. You pass it the terms you want to search for.
php composer.phar search monolog
You can also search for more than one term by passing multiple arguments.
url, repository, downloads and favers) are available for Packagist.org search results and other repositories may return more or less data.To list all of the available packages, you can use the show command.
php composer.phar show
To filter the list you can pass a package mask using wildcards.
php composer.phar show "monolog/*"
monolog/monolog 2.4.0 Sends your logs to files, sockets, inboxes, databases and various web services
If you want to see the details of a certain package, you can pass the package name.
php composer.phar show monolog/monolog
name : monolog/monolog descrip. : Sends your logs to files, sockets, inboxes, databases and various web services keywords : log, logging, psr-3 versions : * 1.27.1 type : library license : MIT License (MIT) (OSI approved) https://spdx.org/licenses/MIT.html#licenseText homepage : http://github.com/Seldaek/monolog source : [git] https://github.com/Seldaek/monolog.git 904713c5929655dc9b97288b69cfeedad610c9a1 dist : [zip] https://api.github.com/repos/Seldaek/monolog/zipball/904713c5929655dc9b97288b69cfeedad610c9a1 904713c5929655dc9b97288b69cfeedad610c9a1 names : monolog/monolog, psr/log-implementation support issues : https://github.com/Seldaek/monolog/issues source : https://github.com/Seldaek/monolog/tree/1.27.1 autoload psr-4 Monolog\ => src/Monolog requires php >=5.3.0 psr/log ~1.0
You can even pass the package version, which will tell you the details of that specific version.
php composer.phar show monolog/monolog 1.0.2
php, hhvm, lib-* and ext-*) and force the installation even if the local machine does not fulfill these. Use with the --outdated option.php, hhvm, lib-* and ext-*) and force the installation even if the local machine does not fulfill it. Multiple requirements can be ignored via wildcard. Use with the --outdated option.The outdated command shows a list of installed packages that have updates available, including their current and latest versions. This is basically an alias for composer show -lo.
The color coding is as such:
~): Dependency has a new version available that includes backwards compatibility breaks according to semver, so upgrade when you can but it may involve work.composer show --latest).php, hhvm, lib-* and ext-*) and force the installation even if the local machine does not fulfill these.php, hhvm, lib-* and ext-*) and force the installation even if the local machine does not fulfill it. Multiple requirements can be ignored via wildcard.The browse (aliased to home) opens a package's repository URL or homepage in your browser.
Lists all packages suggested by the currently installed set of packages. You can optionally pass one or multiple package names in the format of vendor/package to limit output to suggestions made by those packages only.
Use the --by-package (default) or --by-suggestion flags to group the output by the package offering the suggestions or the suggested packages respectively.
If you only want a list of suggested package names, use --list.
require-dev packages.Discover how to help fund the maintenance of your dependencies. This lists all funding links from the installed dependencies. Use --format=json to get machine-readable output.
The depends command tells you which other packages depend on a certain package. As with installation require-dev relationships are only considered for the root package.
php composer.phar depends doctrine/lexer
doctrine/annotations 1.13.3 requires doctrine/lexer (1.*) doctrine/common 2.13.3 requires doctrine/lexer (^1.0)
You can optionally specify a version constraint after the package to limit the search.
Add the --tree or -t flag to show a recursive tree of why the package is depended upon, for example:
php composer.phar depends psr/log -t
psr/log 1.1.4 Common interface for logging libraries ├──composer/composer 2.4.x-dev (requires psr/log ^1.0 || ^2.0 || ^3.0) ├──composer/composer dev-main (requires psr/log ^1.0 || ^2.0 || ^3.0) ├──composer/xdebug-handler 3.0.3 (requires psr/log ^1 || ^2 || ^3) │ ├──composer/composer 2.4.x-dev (requires composer/xdebug-handler ^2.0.2 || ^3.0.3) │ └──composer/composer dev-main (requires composer/xdebug-handler ^2.0.2 || ^3.0.3) └──symfony/console v5.4.11 (conflicts psr/log >=3) (circular dependency aborted here)
The prohibits command tells you which packages are blocking a given package from being installed. Specify a version constraint to verify whether upgrades can be performed in your project, and if not why not. See the following example:
php composer.phar prohibits symfony/symfony 3.1
laravel/framework v5.2.16 requires symfony/var-dumper (2.8.*|3.0.*)
Note that you can also specify platform requirements, for example to check whether you can upgrade your server to PHP 8.0:
php composer.phar prohibits php 8
doctrine/cache v1.6.0 requires php (~5.5|~7.0) doctrine/common v2.6.1 requires php (~5.5|~7.0) doctrine/instantiator 1.0.5 requires php (>=5.3,<8.0-DEV)
As with depends you can request a recursive lookup, which will list all packages depending on the packages that cause the conflict.
You should always run the validate command before you commit your composer.json file, and before you tag a release. It will check if your composer.json is valid.
php composer.phar validate
composer.json use unbound or overly strict version constraints.composer.lock exists and is not up to date.composer.json is unsuitable for publishing as a package on Packagist but is otherwise valid.If you often need to modify the code of your dependencies and they are installed from source, the status command allows you to check if you have local changes in any of them.
php composer.phar status
With the --verbose option you get some more information about what was changed:
php composer.phar status -v
You have changes in the following dependencies:
vendor/seld/jsonlint:
M README.mdown To update Composer itself to the latest version, run the self-update command. It will replace your composer.phar with the latest version.
php composer.phar self-update
If you would like to instead update to a specific release specify it:
php composer.phar self-update 2.4.0-RC1
If you have installed Composer for your entire system (see global installation), you may have to run the command with root privileges
sudo -H composer self-update
If Composer was not installed as a PHAR, this command is not available. (This is sometimes the case when Composer was installed by an operating system package manager.)
The config command allows you to edit Composer config settings and repositories in either the local composer.json file or the global config.json file.
Additionally it lets you edit most properties in the local composer.json.
php composer.phar config --list
config [options] [setting-key] [setting-value1] ... [setting-valueN]
setting-key is a configuration option name and setting-value1 is a configuration value. For settings that can take an array of values (like github-protocols), multiple setting-value arguments are allowed.
You can also edit the values of the following properties:
description, homepage, keywords, license, minimum-stability, name, prefer-stable, type and version.
See the Config chapter for valid configuration options.
$COMPOSER_HOME/config.json by default. Without this option, this command affects the local composer.json file or a file specified by --file.EDITOR env variable. With the --global option, this opens the global config file.setting-key.--global option this lists the global configuration only.--global option.*-dir config values instead of relative.extra.* keys.extra.* keys in combination with --json.In addition to modifying the config section, the config command also supports making changes to the repositories section by using it the following way:
php composer.phar config repositories.foo vcs https://github.com/foo/bar
If your repository requires more configuration options, you can instead pass its JSON representation :
php composer.phar config repositories.foo '{"type": "vcs", "url": "http://svn.example.org/my-project/", "trunk-path": "master"}' In addition to modifying the config section, the config command also supports making changes to the extra section by using it the following way:
php composer.phar config extra.foo.bar value
The dots indicate array nesting, a max depth of 3 levels is allowed though. The above would set "extra": { "foo": { "bar": "value" } }.
If you have a complex value to add/modify, you can use the --json and --merge flags to edit extra fields as json:
php composer.phar config --json extra.foo.bar '{"baz": true, "qux": []}' You can use Composer to create new projects from an existing package. This is the equivalent of doing a git clone/svn checkout followed by a composer install of the vendors.
There are several applications for this:
To create a new project using Composer you can use the create-project command. Pass it a package name, and the directory to create the project in. You can also provide a version as a third argument, otherwise the latest version is used.
If the directory does not currently exist, it will be created during installation.
php composer.phar create-project doctrine/orm path "2.2.*"
It is also possible to run the command without params in a directory with an existing composer.json file to bootstrap a project.
By default the command checks for the packages on packagist.org.
stable.source and dist. Composer uses dist by default. If you pass --prefer-install=source (or --prefer-source) Composer will install from source if there is one. This is useful if you want to make a bugfix to a project and get a local git clone of the dependency directly. To get the legacy behavior where Composer use source automatically for dev versions of packages, use --prefer-install=auto. See also config.preferred-install. Passing this flag will override the config value.composer repository, a path to a local packages.json file, or a JSON string which similar to what the repositories key accepts. You can use this multiple times to configure multiple repositories.require-dev.php, hhvm, lib-* and ext-*) and force the installation even if the local machine does not fulfill these. See also the platform config option.php, hhvm, lib-* and ext-*) and force the installation even if the local machine does not fulfill it. Multiple requirements can be ignored via wildcard.If you need to update the autoloader because of new classes in a classmap package for example, you can use dump-autoload to do that without having to go through an install or update.
Additionally, it can dump an optimized autoloader that converts PSR-0/4 packages into classmap ones for performance reasons. In large applications with many classes, the autoloader can take up a substantial portion of every request's time. Using classmaps for everything is less convenient in development, but using this option you can still use PSR-0/4 for convenience and classmaps for performance.
--optimize.--apcu.install or update --no-dev state.install or update --no-dev state.php, hhvm, lib-* and ext-* requirements and skip the platform check for these. See also the platform config option.php, hhvm, lib-* and ext-*) and skip the platform check for it. Multiple requirements can be ignored via wildcard.Deletes all content from Composer's cache directories.
Lists the name, version and license of every package installed. Use --format=json to get machine-readable output.
To run scripts manually you can use this command, give it the script name and optionally any required arguments.
Executes a vendored binary/script. You can execute any command and this will ensure that the Composer bin-dir is pushed on your PATH before the command runs.
If you think you found a bug, or something is behaving strangely, you might want to run the diagnose command to perform automated checks for many common problems.
php composer.phar diagnose
This command is used to generate a zip/tar archive for a given package in a given version. It can also be used to archive your entire project without excluded/ignored files.
php composer.phar archive vendor/package 2.0.21 --format=zip
This command is used to audit the packages you have installed for possible security issues. It checks for and lists security vulnerability advisories according to the Packagist.org api.
php composer.phar audit
To get more information about a certain command, you can use help.
php composer.phar help install
Command-line completion can be enabled by following instructions on this page.
You can set a number of environment variables that override certain settings. Whenever possible it is recommended to specify these settings in the config section of composer.json instead. It is worth noting that the env vars will always take precedence over the values specified in composer.json.
By setting the COMPOSER env variable it is possible to set the filename of composer.json to something else.
For example:
COMPOSER=composer-other.json php composer.phar install
The generated lock file will use the same name: composer-other.lock in this example.
If set to 1, this env disables the warning about running commands as root/super user. It also disables automatic clearing of sudo sessions, so you should really only set this if you use Composer as a super user at all times like in docker containers.
If set to 1, this env allows running Composer when the Xdebug extension is enabled, without restarting PHP without it.
The COMPOSER_AUTH var allows you to set up authentication as an environment variable. The contents of the variable should be a JSON formatted object containing http-basic, github-oauth, bitbucket-oauth, ... objects as needed, and following the spec from the config.
By setting this option you can change the bin (Vendor Binaries) directory to something other than vendor/bin.
The COMPOSER_CACHE_DIR var allows you to change the Composer cache directory, which is also configurable via the cache-dir option.
By default, it points to C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Composer (or %LOCALAPPDATA%/Composer) on Windows. On *nix systems that follow the XDG Base Directory Specifications, it points to $XDG_CACHE_HOME/composer. On other *nix systems and on macOS, it points to $COMPOSER_HOME/cache.
By setting this environmental value, you can set a path to a certificate bundle file to be used during SSL/TLS peer verification.
If set to 1, this env suppresses a warning when Composer is running with the Xdebug extension enabled.
This env var controls the discard-changes config option.
The COMPOSER_HOME var allows you to change the Composer home directory. This is a hidden, global (per-user on the machine) directory that is shared between all projects.
Use composer config --global home to see the location of the home directory.
By default, it points to C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Composer on Windows and /Users/<user>/.composer on macOS. On *nix systems that follow the XDG Base Directory Specifications, it points to $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/composer. On other *nix systems, it points to /home/<user>/.composer.
You may put a config.json file into the location which COMPOSER_HOME points to. Composer will partially (only config and repositories keys) merge this configuration with your project's composer.json when you run the install and update commands.
This file allows you to set repositories and configuration for the user's projects.
In case global configuration matches local configuration, the local configuration in the project's composer.json always wins.
Defaults to 1. If set to 0, Composer will not create .htaccess files in the Composer home, cache, and data directories.
If set, the value is used as php's memory_limit.
If set to 1, this env changes the default path repository strategy to mirror instead of symlink. As it is the default strategy being set it can still be overwritten by repository options.
If set to 1, this env var will make Composer behave as if you passed the --no-interaction flag to every command. This can be set on build boxes/CI.
This env var controls the time Composer waits for commands (such as git commands) to finish executing. The default value is 300 seconds (5 minutes).
By setting this var you can specify the version of the root package, if it cannot be guessed from VCS info and is not present in composer.json.
By setting this var you can make Composer install the dependencies into a directory other than vendor.
This lets you hint under which environment Composer is running, which can help Composer work around some environment specific issues. The only value currently supported is virtualbox, which then enables some short sleep() calls to wait for the filesystem to have written files properly before we attempt reading them. You can set the environment variable if you use Vagrant or VirtualBox and experience issues with files not being found during installation even though they should be present.
If you are using Composer from behind an HTTP proxy, you can use the standard http_proxy or HTTP_PROXY env vars. Set it to the URL of your proxy. Many operating systems already set this variable for you.
Using http_proxy (lowercased) or even defining both might be preferable since some tools like git or curl will only use the lower-cased http_proxy version. Alternatively you can also define the git proxy using git config --global http.proxy <proxy url>.
If you are using Composer in a non-CLI context (i.e. integration into a CMS or similar use case), and need to support proxies, please provide the CGI_HTTP_PROXY environment variable instead. See httpoxy.org for further details.
Set to an integer to configure how many files can be downloaded in parallel. This defaults to 12 and must be between 1 and 50. If your proxy has issues with concurrency maybe you want to lower this. Increasing it should generally not result in performance gains.
If you use a proxy, but it does not support the request_fulluri flag, then you should set this env var to false or 0 to prevent Composer from setting the request_fulluri option.
If you use a proxy, but it does not support the request_fulluri flag for HTTPS requests, then you should set this env var to false or 0 to prevent Composer from setting the request_fulluri option.
If set, makes the self-update command write the new Composer phar file into that path instead of overwriting itself. Useful for updating Composer on a read-only filesystem.
If you are behind a proxy and would like to disable it for certain domains, you can use the no_proxy or NO_PROXY env var. Set it to a comma separated list of domains the proxy should not be used for.
The env var accepts domains, IP addresses, and IP address blocks in CIDR notation. You can restrict the filter to a particular port (e.g. :80). You can also set it to * to ignore the proxy for all HTTP requests.
If set to 1, disables network access (best effort). This can be used for debugging or to run Composer on a plane or a starship with poor connectivity.
If set to prime, GitHub VCS repositories will prime the cache, so it can then be used fully offline with 1.
If set to 1, outputs information about events being dispatched, which can be useful for plugin authors to identify what is firing when exactly.
If set to 1, it is the equivalent of passing the --no-audit option to require, update, remove or create-project command.
If set to 1, it is the equivalent of passing the --no-dev option to install or update. You can override this for a single command by setting COMPOSER_NO_DEV=0.
If set to 1, it is the equivalent of passing the --prefer-stable option to update or require.
If set to 1, it is the equivalent of passing the --prefer-lowest option to update or require.
If COMPOSER_IGNORE_PLATFORM_REQS set to 1, it is the equivalent of passing the --ignore-platform-reqs argument. Otherwise, specifying a comma separated list in COMPOSER_IGNORE_PLATFORM_REQ will ignore those specific requirements.
For example, if a development workstation will never run database queries, this can be used to ignore the requirement for the database extensions to be available. If you set COMPOSER_IGNORE_PLATFORM_REQ=ext-oci8, then composer will allow packages to be installed even if the oci8 PHP extension is not enabled.
© Nils Adermann, Jordi Boggiano
Licensed under the MIT License.
https://getcomposer.org/doc/03-cli.md