composer-custom-directory-installer

A Composer plugin to install packages in custom directories outside the default vendor folder.

This is not another composer-installer library for supporting non-composer package types such as application. It only adds flexibility for installing standard composer package types in custom paths.

https://getcomposer.org/doc/04-schema.md#type

The type of the package. It defaults to library.

Package types are used for custom installation logic. If you have a package that needs some special logic, you can define a custom type. This could be a symfony-bundle, a wordpress-plugin or a typo3-module. These types will all be specific to certain projects, and they will need to provide an installer capable of installing packages of that type.

Requirements

• PHP >= 8.1
• Composer 2.x

Installation

Add the plugin to the require section of your composer.json:

"require": {
    "mnsami/composer-custom-directory-installer": "^2.1"
}

Important — Composer 2.2+ plugin trust:
Composer 2.2 and later require you to explicitly allow third-party plugins. Add the following to your composer.json:

"config": {
    "allow-plugins": {
        "mnsami/composer-custom-directory-installer": true
    }
}

Without this, Composer will either prompt interactively or block the plugin entirely in non-interactive (CI) environments.

How to use

In the extra section of your root composer.json, define the custom directory for each package:

"extra": {
    "installer-paths": {
        "./monolog/": ["monolog/monolog"]
    }
}

This tells Composer to install monolog/monolog into the ./monolog/ directory instead of vendor/monolog/monolog.

Path Variables

You can use the following variables in your installer-paths to build dynamic paths:

Variable	Description	Example value
{$vendor}	The vendor portion of the package name	monolog
{$name}	The package name (or installer-name override)	monolog
{$type}	The Composer package type	library

"extra": {
    "installer-paths": {
        "./customlibs/{$vendor}/db/{$name}": ["doctrine/orm"],
        "./custom/{$type}/{$vendor}/{$name}": ["acme/*"]
    }
}

Matching Strategies

installer-paths supports three matching strategies, evaluated in order of precedence:

1. Exact package name (highest precedence)

Matches one specific package:

"installer-paths": {
    "./libs/monolog/": ["monolog/monolog"]
}

2. Package type prefix

Matches all packages of a given Composer type using the type: prefix:

"installer-paths": {
    "./wp-content/plugins/{$name}/": ["type:wordpress-plugin"]
}

3. Wildcard vendor glob (lowest precedence)

Matches all packages from a given vendor using *:

"installer-paths": {
    "./acme-libs/{$name}/": ["acme/*"]
}

Custom installer-name

A package can override the {$name} variable by setting installer-name in its own extra section (inside the package's composer.json, not the root project):

"extra": {
    "installer-name": "my-custom-name"
}

When set, {$name} in the path template will resolve to my-custom-name instead of the package's actual name.

Complete example

{
    "require": {
        "mnsami/composer-custom-directory-installer": "^2.1",
        "monolog/monolog": "*",
        "acme/foo": "*",
        "acme/bar": "*"
    },
    "config": {
        "allow-plugins": {
            "mnsami/composer-custom-directory-installer": true
        }
    },
    "extra": {
        "installer-paths": {
            "./logger/":              ["monolog/monolog"],
            "./acme/{$name}/":        ["acme/*"],
            "./plugins/{$name}/":     ["type:wordpress-plugin"]
        }
    }
}

Security

Resolved install paths are validated to prevent directory traversal attacks. A path resolving to a value that contains .. will throw an InvalidArgumentException.

Upgrading from v1.x

	v1.x	v2.x
PHP	>= 5.3	>= 8.1
Composer	1.x / 2.x	2.x only
Require string	"1.*"	"^2.1"
type: matching	No	Yes
Wildcard vendor/*	No	Yes
{$type} variable	No	Yes
allow-plugins needed	No	Yes (Composer 2.2+)

Existing installer-paths configurations (exact package names) are fully backwards-compatible and require no changes.

Note

Composer type: project is not supported by this installer, as packages with type project only make sense to be used with application shells like symfony/framework-standard-edition.