Skip to content

Installing Deptrac using bamarni/composer-bin-plugin

Jun 28, 2025 - 3 min read

Have you tried installing Deptrac as a composer --dev dependency and encountered Composer conflicts? This blog post is for you! We will show you how to install Deptrac as a Composer dependency in a separate scoped installation that will not conflict with any of your existing Composer dependencies.

Deptrac as a library itself has its own dependencies as many PHP packages do. This may become a problem if the dependencies of Deptrac are not compatible with already existing dependencies in your project. Most notably, Deptrac depends on a number of symfony packages.

Imagine a situation where you depend on newer major version of symfony/console than Deptrac does. For example your composer.json file looks like this:

{
    "require": {
        "symfony/console": "^7.0"
    }
}

If you try to install the newest version of Deptrac at the time of writing (4.0.x-dev), Composer won't let you:

$ composer require --dev deptrac/deptrac:4.0.x-dev -W
./composer.json has been updated
Running composer update deptrac/deptrac --with-all-dependencies
Loading composer repositories with package information
Updating dependencies
Your requirements could not be resolved to an installable set of packages.

  Problem 1
    - Root composer.json requires deptrac/deptrac 4.0.x-dev -> satisfiable by deptrac/deptrac[4.0.x-dev].
    - deptrac/deptrac 4.0.x-dev requires symfony/console ^6.0 -> found symfony/console[v6.0.0, ..., v6.4.23] but it conflicts with your root composer.json require (^7.0).


Installation failed, reverting ./composer.json and ./composer.lock to their original content.

Luckily, there is a solution for this exact problem of conflicting dev dependencies. It comes in the form of the bamarni/composer-bin-plugin. First, let's install the plugin:

$ composer require --dev bamarni/composer-bin-plugin
./composer.json has been updated
Running composer update bamarni/composer-bin-plugin
Loading composer repositories with package information
Updating dependencies
Lock file operations: 1 install, 0 updates, 0 removals
  - Locking bamarni/composer-bin-plugin (1.8.2)
Writing lock file
Installing dependencies from lock file (including require-dev)
Package operations: 1 install, 0 updates, 0 removals
bamarni/composer-bin-plugin contains a Composer plugin which is currently not in your allow-plugins config. See https://getcomposer.org/allow-plugins
Do you trust "bamarni/composer-bin-plugin" to execute code and wish to enable it now? (writes "allow-plugins" to composer.json) [y,n,d,?] y
  - Installing bamarni/composer-bin-plugin (1.8.2): Extracting archive
Generating autoload files
[bamarni-bin] The setting "extra.bamarni-bin.bin-links" will be set to "false" from 2.x onwards. If you wish to keep it to "true", you need to set it explicitly.
[bamarni-bin] The setting "extra.bamarni-bin.forward-command" will be set to "true" from 2.x onwards. If you wish to keep it to "false", you need to set it explicitly.
8 packages you are using are looking for funding.
Use the `composer fund` command to find out more!
No security vulnerability advisories found.
Using version ^1.8 for bamarni/composer-bin-plugin

Now you can install a scoped version of Deptrac in the deptrac namespace:

$ composer bin deptrac require --dev deptrac/deptrac:4.0.x-dev -W
[bamarni-bin] Checking namespace vendor-bin/deptrac
./composer.json has been updated
Running composer update deptrac/deptrac --with-all-dependencies
Loading composer repositories with package information
Updating dependencies
Lock file operations: 29 installs, 0 updates, 0 removals
  - Locking composer/pcre (3.3.2)
  - Locking composer/xdebug-handler (3.0.5)
  - Locking deptrac/deptrac (4.0.x-dev 189fd13)
  - Locking doctrine/deprecations (1.1.5)
  - Locking jetbrains/phpstorm-stubs (v2024.1)
  - Locking nikic/php-parser (v5.5.0)
  - Locking phpdocumentor/graphviz (2.1.0)
  - Locking phpdocumentor/reflection-common (2.2.0)
  - Locking phpdocumentor/type-resolver (1.10.0)
  - Locking phpstan/phpdoc-parser (1.33.0)
  - Locking psr/container (2.0.2)
  - Locking psr/event-dispatcher (1.0.0)
  - Locking psr/log (3.0.2)
  - Locking symfony/config (v6.4.22)
  - Locking symfony/console (v6.4.23)
  - Locking symfony/dependency-injection (v6.4.23)
  - Locking symfony/deprecation-contracts (v3.6.0)
  - Locking symfony/event-dispatcher (v6.4.13)
  - Locking symfony/event-dispatcher-contracts (v3.6.0)
  - Locking symfony/filesystem (v6.4.13)
  - Locking symfony/finder (v6.4.17)
  - Locking symfony/polyfill-ctype (v1.32.0)
  - Locking symfony/polyfill-intl-grapheme (v1.32.0)
  - Locking symfony/polyfill-intl-normalizer (v1.32.0)
  - Locking symfony/polyfill-mbstring (v1.32.0)
  - Locking symfony/service-contracts (v3.6.0)
  - Locking symfony/string (v7.3.0)
  - Locking symfony/var-exporter (v7.3.0)
  - Locking symfony/yaml (v6.4.23)
Writing lock file
Installing dependencies from lock file (including require-dev)
Package operations: 29 installs, 0 updates, 0 removals
  - Downloading deptrac/deptrac (4.0.x-dev 189fd13)
  - Installing composer/pcre (3.3.2): Extracting archive
  - Installing symfony/polyfill-ctype (v1.32.0): Extracting archive
  - Installing symfony/deprecation-contracts (v3.6.0): Extracting archive
  - Installing symfony/yaml (v6.4.23): Extracting archive
  - Installing symfony/finder (v6.4.17): Extracting archive
  - Installing symfony/polyfill-mbstring (v1.32.0): Extracting archive
  - Installing symfony/filesystem (v6.4.13): Extracting archive
  - Installing psr/event-dispatcher (1.0.0): Extracting archive
  - Installing symfony/event-dispatcher-contracts (v3.6.0): Extracting archive
  - Installing symfony/event-dispatcher (v6.4.13): Extracting archive
  - Installing symfony/var-exporter (v7.3.0): Extracting archive
  - Installing psr/container (2.0.2): Extracting archive
  - Installing symfony/service-contracts (v3.6.0): Extracting archive
  - Installing symfony/dependency-injection (v6.4.23): Extracting archive
  - Installing symfony/polyfill-intl-normalizer (v1.32.0): Extracting archive
  - Installing symfony/polyfill-intl-grapheme (v1.32.0): Extracting archive
  - Installing symfony/string (v7.3.0): Extracting archive
  - Installing symfony/console (v6.4.23): Extracting archive
  - Installing symfony/config (v6.4.22): Extracting archive
  - Installing phpstan/phpdoc-parser (1.33.0): Extracting archive
  - Installing phpdocumentor/reflection-common (2.2.0): Extracting archive
  - Installing doctrine/deprecations (1.1.5): Extracting archive
  - Installing phpdocumentor/type-resolver (1.10.0): Extracting archive
  - Installing phpdocumentor/graphviz (2.1.0): Extracting archive
  - Installing nikic/php-parser (v5.5.0): Extracting archive
  - Installing jetbrains/phpstorm-stubs (v2024.1): Extracting archive
  - Installing psr/log (3.0.2): Extracting archive
  - Installing composer/xdebug-handler (3.0.5): Extracting archive
  - Installing deptrac/deptrac (4.0.x-dev 189fd13): Extracting archive
Generating autoload files
18 packages you are using are looking for funding.
Use the `composer fund` command to find out more!
No security vulnerability advisories found.

Your Deptrac executable is now in vendor-bin/deptrac/vendor/deptrac/deptrac/deptrac. To make calling it easier, you might want to create a Composer alias for it in your composer.json file:

{
  "scripts": {
    "deptrac": "vendor-bin/deptrac/vendor/deptrac/deptrac/deptrac -c deptrac.php --report-uncovered"
  }
}

You can now call composer deptrac to run Deptrac itself.

Do you like Deptrac and use it every day? Consider supporting further development of Deptrac by sponsoring me on GitHub Sponsors. I’d really appreciate it!

Author: patrickkusebauch