The composer.json file
Overview
Magento 2 uses Composer, a PHP dependency manager, to package components and product editions.
Composer reads a composer.json file in Magento’s root directory to download third-party dependencies listed in the file.
We recommend you include composer.json in your component’s root directory even if you do not intend to distribute it to other merchants using Magento.
Magento does not support the path repository pointing to a folder outside of the Magento root.
composer.json
Here is the example of composer.json file.
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{
"name": "mycompany/sample-module-minimal",
"description": "A module that creates a page in the Magento admin area",
"type": "magento2-module",
"version": "1.0.0",
"license": [
"OSL-3.0",
"AFL-3.0"
],
"require": {
"php": "~7.3.0||~7.4.0"
},
"autoload": {
"files": [ "registration.php" ],
"psr-4": {
"MyCompany\\ExampleAdminNewPage\\": ""
}
}
}
Composer binary location
Magento uses the composer binary in the <Magento root>/vendor/composer directory instead of a globally installed composer.
Keep this in mind while customizing, updating, or troubleshooting composer while working with Magento 2.
Project vs product
In Composer, a “project” package is a template used by the composer create-project to set up the project structure.
The installation instructions for system integrators use the Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce project packages to set up the Magento directory structure.
A “product” package is the actual application pointed to by the composer.json file after you download and install the project package using composer create-project.
Descriptions of different composer.json files
The following Magento components and product editions use a composer.json file.
Magento Root
Location: composer.json
Name: magento/magento2ce
Type: project
This is Magento’s main composer.json file which declares dependencies and third-party components.
Other root composer.json files use this file as a template.
Magento Open Source project
Location: composer.json
Name: magento/project-community-edition
Type: project
Magento system integrators use this composer.json file to deploy the Magento Open Source product and its dependencies.
Adobe Commerce project
Location: composer.json
Name: magento/product-enterprise-edition
Type: metapackage
Magento system integrators use this composer.json file to deploy the Adobe Commerce product and its dependencies.
Magento Framework
Location: lib/internal/Magento/Framework/composer.json
Name: magento/framework
Type: magento2-library
The Magento application uses this composer.json file for its framework packages.
Module
Locations:
app/code/<vendor-name>/<module-name>/composer.jsonvendor/<vendor-name>/<module-name>/composer.json
Name: <vendor-name>/<package-name>
Type: magento2-module
The composer.json file for a module extension declares external dependencies that it needs to function.
Theme
Locations:
app/design/frontend/<vendor-name>/<theme-name>/composer.jsonapp/design/adminhtml/<vendor-name>/<theme-name>/composer.json
Name: <vendor-name>/<package-name>
Type: magento2-theme
The composer.json file for a theme component contains parent theme dependencies the extension needs to inherit.
Language Package
Location:
app/i18n/<vendor-name>/<language-code>/composer.json
Name: <vendor-name>/<package-name>
Type: magento2-language
For language packages, you must use the correct ISO code for the language code in the composer.json file.
Magento-specific package types
Extensions can be any of the following types:
magento2-modulefor modulesmagento2-themefor themesmagento2-languagefor language packagesmagento2-componentfor general extensions that do not fit any of the other types
The extension type tells the system where to install the directories and files of each extension in the Magento directory structure.
Naming conventions
Since the namespace of a Composer package is global within a package repository, e.g. packagist.org, use the following format when naming your package:
<vendor-name>/<package-name>
Using the Composer naming convention helps distinguish packages from different vendors with a low risk of overlapping.
vendor-name
All letters in the vendor name must be in lowercase.
For example, the vendor name format for extensions released by Magento Inc is magento.
Commerce Marketplace Extensions
Commerce Marketplace uses vendor-name to match an extension to a vendor during the extension submission process.
If you plan to submit your extension to the Commerce Marketplace, you must use the unique Vendor Name created or assigned to you when you created your marketplace account.
In the composer.json file, use the value of ‘Vendor Name’ in your profile for the vendor-name part of the extension name.
Please see the Marketplace Documentation for more information about your unique vendor name.
package-name
All letters in the package-name must be in lowercase.
If the name contains more than one word, the Composer specification recommends separating them with dashes.
The convention for Magento package names is the following
magento/<type-prefix>-<suffix>[-<suffix>]...
Where:
:type-prefix is any of the extension types:
module-for module extensionstheme-for theme extensionslanguage-for language extensionsproduct-for metapackages such as Magento Open Source or Adobe Commerce
: suffix is a unique identifier for extensions of that type.
Versioning
Components have the following types of versions:
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Marketing version; in other words, the version the merchant interacts with.
Your initial version might be 1.0.0 or 2.0.0, for example. You should follow our versioning policy guidelines when setting your version.
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Composer version; in other words, the version of each module, theme, language package, third-party package, and dependencies.
Using Magento code as an example, Magento Open Source marketing version 2.0.0 includes component versions such as 100.0.1, 100.0.2, and so on. These versioning strategy prevents collisions between the marketing version and component versions.