shudd3r/toolshed

Composer plugin orchestrating global dev tool packages

0.1.0 2026-08-23 10:46 UTC

Requires

• php: ^7.4 || ^8.0
• composer-plugin-api: ^2.0
• ext-json: *

Requires (Dev)

• composer/composer: ^2.0
• polymorphine/dev: 0.6.1

MIT

• shudd3r

Published on Packagist.org on 2026-08-23 11:04 UTC

README

Composer plugin orchestrating global dev tool packages

Most dev dependencies listed in composer.json of your projects are not an integral part of these projects. At best, they are common libraries, like testing frameworks, that your dev environment depends on. These tools could be installed in shared locations and used remotely. This is the whole idea behind Toolshed plugin.

Core features:

• Avoid multiple installations of the same tool, which might reduce filesystem clutter by thousands of files. Tools are installed, updated & synchronized in Composer's global subdirectories, so multiple versions of the same tool would still be available for different projects.

• Isolate the project's dev environment - "dirty" tool dependencies such as autoloaded polyfill functions might make your IDE behave as if your target PHP version supported them (which would remain true until the project reaches no-dev stage on production).

• Neutral to non-plugin environments - use dev tools as if they were installed as the project's local require-dev packages. Environments with the plugin installed shouldn't notice any difference beside reduced number of libraries within the vendor directory. The plugin maintains only redirect binaries to shared tool executables.

Installation with Composer

composer global config allow-plugins.shudd3r/toolshed true
composer global require shudd3r/toolshed

Basic Usage

Select commonly used tools from require-dev section of composer.json that are not specific to your project's dev environment and add their package names to extra.shared-tools list. For example:

{
    "require-dev": {
        "phpunit/phpunit": "^12.0",
        "friendsofphp/php-cs-fixer": "^3.90",
        "project/template-builder": "2.4.*"
    },
    "extra": {
        "shared-tools": ["phpunit/phpunit", "friendsofphp/php-cs-fixer"]
    }
}

You can add this section directly to project's composer.json file or use the following command (quotes might need escaping on Windows):

composer config --json --merge extra.shared-tools '["friendsofphp/php-cs-fixer"]'

Now, running composer update or install will remove the listed tool files from project's vendor directory and move them to shared-tools in Composer's global home location, leaving only short redirect binaries in your vendor/bin directory instead. The goal is to make the tools work as if the plugin was not installed.

TODO & Known issues

Warning

Links to shared tools are not removed after tool is removed from list or plugin is deactivated (either globally or shared-tools removed from composer.json. Composer doesn't overwrite existing binary files.

TODO: Requires reorganizing link creation control flow

Warning

IDE integrations (PhpStorm):

• Tool namespace references require adding external libraries, which would import unwanted classes and polyfill functions, defeating the isolation goal.
• Configuration for PHPUnit tests requires either the .phar location or the path to composer's autoload.php, which might change dynamically due to version updates.

Possible solution: Merged autoload.php for main namespaces or static redirect file

Warning

Relative paths for tool commands that directly or indirectly refer to resources from vendor directory will no longer be valid.

Possible solution: Custom binaries (outside plugin scope)

Warning

Faulty path resolution in binary files. For example Composer autoload.php` lookup based on current working directory.

Possible solution: Fixing PRs or custom binaries