Composer Local Repo Plugin

This plugin, built for Composer, facilitates the creation of a local composer type repository (refer to documentation) from an existing package. Basically, this plugin let you use Composer in "offline" mode.

The repository type composer is identical to the format used by Packagist. It uses a specific structure, featuring a manifest file named packages.json and a unique directory structure. Each version of the package within the repository has its own corresponding source.

Created with the goal of installing a PHP package in a repeatable manner, this plugin eliminates the need for network access post repository creation.

The plugin is currently used within Nix. More information can be found in the corresponding PR, marking the project's inception.

This project has been heavily inspired of fossar/composition-c4 from Jan Tojnar.

Requirements

• Composer 2

Installation

Install the plugin globally once:

composer global require nix-community/composer-local-repo-plugin

Usage

Using an updated composer.lock file (recommended)

1. Navigate to the package directory, or use the --working-dir option.
2. Make sure the composer.json and composer.lock files are present.
3. Generate the local repository using the command: composer build-local-repo-lock /path/to/local/repository. This will create a local composer repository in the specified directory and generate an updated file composer.lock in the same location. Use the -r or -m options to generate only a repository or the composer.lock, respectively. For more details, refer to the command help: composer build-local-repo-lock --help.
4. The combination of the package sources and the local repository we just created are now strictly enough to build the vendor directory necessary for the package to work. Therefore at this stage, we can disable the network as no further network access is required or you can use the environment variable COMPOSER_DISABLE_NETWORK set to 1 to do so.
5. Copy the updated composer.lock file in the package directory: cp /path/to/local/reposity/composer.lock .
6. Finally, install the package by entering the command: composer install.

Using a Composer repository type (deprecated since Composer 2.7)

Note: Since Composer 2.7, this method is deprecated since it doesn't work any more. More info at composer/composer#11850

1. Navigate to the package directory, or use the --working-dir option.
2. Make sure the composer.json and composer.lock files are present.
3. Generate the local repository using the command: composer build-local-repo /path/to/local/repository. This will create a local composer repository in the specified directory and generate a manifest file packages.json in the same location. Use the -r or -m options to generate only a repository or a manifest file, respectively. For more details, refer to the command help: composer build-local-repo --help.
4. The combination of the package sources and the local repository we just created are now strictly enough to build the vendor directory necessary for the package to work. Therefore at this stage, we can disable the network as no further network access is required or you can use the environment variable COMPOSER_DISABLE_NETWORK set to 1 to do so.
5. Disable Packagist by entering the command: composer config repo.packagist false.
6. Integrate the newly created local composer repository into the composer.json file using the command: composer config repo.local composer file:///path/to/local/reposity/packages.json.
7. Refresh the lock file using the command: composer update --lock --no-install --no-scripts --no-plugins --no-interaction.
8. Finally, install the package by entering the command: composer install.

In Nix

The plugin is used in Nix to build Composer based PHP packages. The combination of the source package and the local repository built with this plugin is unique and Nix uses that for ensuring reproducibility.

Note

By default, Composer will create symbolic links to the packages, if you want to copy the packages instead, set the environment variable COMPOSER_MIRROR_PATH_REPOS to 1