How to use the fork of a repository with Composer

When using packages maintained by other developers, you may eventually find yourself waiting for a fix, an update, or the merge of a PR that will be available with the next release. If you can't wait, a workaround is to fork the corresponding repository, make the changes you need and then use your fork instead of the original package.

Say I want to use my own version of Guzzle – I would edit composer.json like so (osteel is my GitHub username):

{
    ...
    "repositories": [
        {
            "type": "vcs",
            "url": "git@github.com:osteel/guzzle"
        }
    ],
    "require": {
        "guzzlehttp/guzzle": "dev-master"
    }
    ...
}

This would use the master branch of my fork. If my fix were in a branch named bugfix, I would require dev-bugfix instead.

I would then run the following command:

$ composer update guzzlehttp/guzzle

It would download and use my fork instead of the original package. Done!

Just make sure to change it back to the latter once your fix is merged 😉

Last updated by osteel on 2020-09-16 :: [ composer github fork repository php ]