Zed PHP_CodeSniffer Auto-Fixer Setup

Integrates PHP_CodeSniffer's phpcbf auto-fixer as an external formatter in Zed.

Requirements

• Lua (lua must be on your $PATH)
• Composer with squizlabs/php_codesniffer installed in your project (vendor/bin/phpcbf)
• A phpcs.xml config file in your project root

Installation

1. Clone this repo

git clone https://github.com/AHaldner/zed-phpcbf-setup.git
cd zed-phpcbf-setup

2. Run the installer

This adds a setup-phpcbf shell function to your ~/.zshrc:

./install.sh
source ~/.zshrc

3. Run the setup in your project

Navigate to the root of the PHP project you want to configure and run:

cd /path/to/your/php-project
setup-phpcbf

This will:

• Create a tools/ directory with the phpcbf wrapper script
• Add .tmp/ to your .gitignore

4. Configure Zed

Add the following to your Zed settings.json (open it via Zed > Settings > Open Settings):

"PHP": {
  "formatter": {
    "external": {
      "command": "tools/phpcbf",
      "arguments": ["{buffer_path}"]
    }
  }
}

Note: The command path is relative to your project root. Make sure you have run setup-phpcbf in that project first so the tools/phpcbf script exists.

How it works

When Zed formats a PHP file, it pipes the buffer contents to tools/phpcbf, which:

1. Writes the buffer to a temporary file inside .tmp/zed-phpcbf/
2. Runs vendor/bin/phpcbf against it using your phpcs.xml ruleset
3. Outputs the fixed content back to Zed

Exit codes are handled correctly, phpcbf returns 1 when it makes fixes (success) and 2+ on actual errors.

Project structure

zed-phpcbf-setup/
├── install.sh        # Adds setup-phpcbf to ~/.zshrc
├── setup.lua         # Creates tools/phpcbf in your project
└── scripts/
    └── phpcbf        # The wrapper script copied into your project