Composer-Normalize
A Composer plugin that automatically normalizes and formats composer.json files according to a consistent schema.
What is Composer-Normalize?
composer-normalize is a Composer plugin that automatically normalizes composer.json files to ensure consistent formatting and structure. It applies standardized rules for property ordering, indentation, and schema compliance, eliminating manual formatting efforts and disagreements in collaborative projects.
PHP developers and teams working on projects that use Composer for dependency management, particularly those in collaborative environments where consistent composer.json formatting is important.
Developers choose composer-normalize because it automates a tedious manual process, provides configurable formatting options, and integrates seamlessly into CI/CD pipelines with dry-run and diff features to enforce consistency without debate.
Overview
🎵 Provides a composer plugin for normalizing composer.json.
Use Cases
Best For
- Enforcing consistent composer.json formatting across team projects to avoid manual formatting debates.
- Integrating automated composer.json normalization into CI/CD pipelines to ensure compliance.
- Updating and validating composer.lock file hashes automatically after normalization changes.
- Configuring custom indentation styles (space vs. tab) and sizes for composer.json files.
- Previewing normalization changes with dry-run and diff options before applying them.
- Managing composer.json files in large open-source PHP projects with multiple contributors.
Not Ideal For
- Projects not using PHP or Composer for dependency management, such as JavaScript or Python applications.
- Teams that already use other tools like PHP-CS-Fixer with composer.json rules, leading to redundancy.
- Development environments where manual composer.json editing is preferred, such as those with strict, custom JSON schemas.
Pros & Cons
Pros
Applies standardized rules to composer.json, including property ordering and indentation, eliminating manual formatting efforts as shown in diff examples with projects like pestphp/pest.
Checks if composer.lock is up-to-date and updates its hash automatically after normalization, ensuring file integrity without extra commands.
Supports configurable indentation via command-line or composer.json extra settings, allowing teams to customize formatting to their preferences.
Provides --dry-run and --diff options to preview changes without modifying files, making it easy to enforce compliance in continuous integration pipelines.
Cons
Only normalizes composer.json files, not general JSON files, limiting its utility to PHP projects that rely on Composer.
Requires enabling the plugin via composer config allow-plugins, adding an extra setup step and potential security considerations as noted in the README.
Relies on a fixed normalization schema; if Composer introduces new properties, the tool might not handle them until updated, potentially causing issues.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Projects
OctoLinker Browser ExtensionOctoLinker — Links together, what belongs together
SatisSimple static Composer repository generator - For a full private Composer repo use Private Packagist
Composer/Xdebug-HandlerRestart a CLI process without loading the xdebug extension.
Composer-PatchesSimple patches plugin for Composer
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