README

Overview

This Composer plugin ensures that when installing packages from VCS repositories (such as Git) via the repositories configuration, only the files allowed by .gitattributes export-ignore rules are placed in the vendor directory.
It enables clean, distribution-like installs even when directly referencing VCS sources, helping maintain a tidy vendor/ with only the intended files from each package.

Features

• Applies .gitattributes export-ignore rules to packages installed from VCS repositories
• Ensures only distribution-ready files are present in vendor/
• Works automatically during Composer install/update
• No configuration required for standard usage

Installation

Add the plugin to your project using Composer:

composer require --dev sunaoka/composer-vcs-export-plugin

Or

composer global require sunaoka/composer-vcs-export-plugin

Usage

No additional configuration is needed.
When you install or update packages from VCS repositories (e.g., via the repositories section in your composer.json), this plugin will:

• Detect if the package was installed from a Git repository
• Use git archive to export files, respecting .gitattributes export-ignore rules
• Replace the package directory in vendor/ with the exported contents

Example

composer.json:

{
    "repositories": [
        {
            "type": "vcs",
            "url": "https://example.com/your-vendor/your-library.git"
        }
    ],
    "require": {
        "your-vendor/your-library": "^1.0",
        "sunaoka/composer-vcs-export-plugin": "^1.0"
    },
    "config": {
        "allow-plugins": {
          "sunaoka/composer-vcs-export-plugin": true
        }
    }
}

With this setup, only the files not marked with export-ignore in .gitattributes will be present in vendor/your-vendor/your-library.

Requirements

• PHP 7.2.5 or later
• Composer 2.x
• git and unzip command available in the system environment

Limitations

• Only works with Git repositories
• Requires the .git directory to be present in the installed package (i.e., VCS install, not dist)
• May not work on environments where git archive or unzip are unavailable (e.g., some Windows setups)
• Does not affect packages installed via dist (zip/tarball)