Drupal Composer Project

  
Last updated January 5, 2022
Backend and InfrastructureDrupal 9Drupal 8

Figuring out how to use the Composer package manager to handle your project's dependencies can be a bit tricky. Using the Drupal Composer Project as a starting point provides you with an opinionated (and Drupal-aware) starting point. This project provides help with many of the common initial project setup tasks including the installation of tools like Drush and Drupal Console, as well as setting the correct file permissions required to actually install Drupal.

Note: As of Drupal 8.8.0, the recommended Composer template is the "officially supported" drupal/recommended-project. There are other popular "templates" for starting a new Drupal application with Composer, including drupal-composer/drupal-project. You can find the full list in Using Composer to manage Drupal site dependencies on Drupal.org.

Example tasks

  • Use a common scaffold tool for new project setup
  • Leverage Composer to manage all of the dependencies of the codebase
  • Start each new project with the most recent Drush and Drupal Console versions ready to go
  • Manage the Drupal core update process more easily

Confidence

The Drupal Composer project provided a stop-gap in managing Drupal sites with Composer for most of Drupal 8's lifecycle. While this project still exists and may be used, the Drupal project now provides its own "recommended-project" Composer template which is the current recommendation for setting up Drupal sites for development.

Drupalize.Me resources

Tutorial

Use Composer with Your Drupal Project

Free
Backend and Infrastructure, Drupal 8, Drupal 7, Drupal 9
More information

When managing your Drupal project with Composer you'll use Composer commands to download (require) modules and themes that you want to install, as well as issuing commands to keep those modules and themes up-to-date when new versions are released.

In this tutorial we'll:

Tutorial

Use Composer with Your Drupal Project

Free
Backend and Infrastructure, Drupal 8, Drupal 7, Drupal 9
More information

When managing your Drupal project with Composer you'll use Composer commands to download (require) modules and themes that you want to install, as well as issuing commands to keep those modules and themes up-to-date when new versions are released.

In this tutorial we'll:

Tutorial

Update Drupal from Versions Prior to 8.8.x using Composer

Free
Site Administration, Drupal 8
More information

Drupal 8.8.0 introduced a bunch of new features intended to make it easier over the long-term to maintain a Drupal project using Composer. In doing so it establishes some new best practices, and moves into Drupal core solutions that were previously maintained by the community. This is all good news. But, it means if you're using Composer to update from Drupal 8.7.x or lower to 8.8.0 or higher you'll need to do a bit of additional work to untangle everything.

Topic

Composer

Site Building, Theming, Module Development, Backend and Infrastructure, Site Administration, Drupal 9, Drupal 8
More information

Composer is the preferred dependency management solution for PHP, is used by Drupal core, and is becoming increasingly popular for managing the modules and themes used for a Drupal project.

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External resources

  • Drupal Composer Project (github.com)
    • This is the actual repository you can use to get started with a project. The README.md file is an excellent starting point.
  • Using Composer to manage Drupal site dependencies (Drupal.org)
    • Community documentation which compares various options for using Composer to download and manage a Drupal codebase, including using the drupal-composer/drupal-project.