How to Package Module in Magento 2?

How to Package Module in Magento 2? You will be guided in this topic by creating a composer file composer.json before you implement the packaging of any module. With the assistance of the composer file, it is allowed to deliver, install, and upgrade components in an application instance.

4 Steps to package module in Magento 2

Step 1: Setup a Magento Composer file (composer.json)
Step 2: Register the component using registration.php
Step 3: Package and generate the component
Step 4: View sample composer.json

Step 1: Setup a Magento Composer file (`composer.json`)

The composer.json file allows specifying the name, Magento 2 requirements, version, and some of other basic information about the component you are concerning. However, you need to save this file in the root directory of the module.

The composer.json uses Composer’s generic schema, with some requirements:

Element	Description
`name`	A fully-qualified component name, in the format `<vendor-name>/module-<component-name>`. All letters must be in lowercase. Use dashes in the `<component-name>` to separate words.
`type`	For modules, this value must be set to `magento2-module`. Other possible types are `metapackage`, `magento2-theme`, and `magento2-language`.
`autoload`	Specify necessary information to be loaded, such as [registration.php](extension-dev-guide/build/component-registration.html). For more information, see Autoloading from Composer.

In Magento Marketplace, there are a number of the acceptable component types. Each component type is corresponding to one composer type in the next column of the following table. And the value of the type field you must add to composer.json for that type of component.

Friendly name	composer.json `type`
Metapackage	metapackage
Module	magento2-module
Theme	magento2-theme
Language package	magento2-language

Let’s take the below example for Metapackage

{
    "name": "magento/product-community-edition",
    "description": "A sample metapackage",
    "version": "2.0.0",
    "type": "metapackage",
    "require": {
        "php": "~5.5.0|~5.6.0|~7.0.0",
        "zendframework/zend-stdlib": "~2.4.6",
        "zendframework/zend-code": "~2.4.6",
        "zendframework/zend-server": "~2.4.6",
        "zendframework/zend-soap": "~2.4.6",
        "zendframework/zend-uri": "~2.4.6",
        "zendframework/zend-validator": "~2.4.6",
        "zendframework/zend-crypt": "~2.4.6",
        "zendframework/zend-console": "~2.4.6",
        "zendframework/zend-modulemanager": "~2.4.6",
        "zendframework/zend-mvc": "~2.4.6",
        "zendframework/zend-text": "~2.4.6",
        "zendframework/zend-i18n": "~2.4.6",
        "ext-ctype": "*",
        "ext-gd": "*",
        "ext-spl": "*",
        "ext-dom": "*",
        "ext-simplexml": "*",
        "ext-mcrypt": "*",
        "ext-hash": "*",
        "ext-curl": "*",
        "ext-iconv": "*",
        "ext-intl": "*",
        "ext-xsl": "*",
        "ext-mbstring": "*",
        "ext-openssl": "*"
        },
    "license": [
        "OSL-3.0",
        "AFL-3.0"
    ]
}

And the following example is the composer.json file for a module:

{
  "name": "magento/sample-module-newpage",
  "description": "A Magento 2 module that creates a new page",
  "type": "magento2-module",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "license": [
    "OSL-3.0",
    "AFL-3.0"
  ],
  "require": {
    "php": "~5.5.0|~5.6.0|~7.0.0",
    "magento/framework": "~100.0.4"
  },
  "autoload": {
    "files": [ "registration.php" ],
    "psr-4": {
      "Magento\\SampleNewPage\\": ""
    }
  }
}

Step 2: Register the component using `registration.php`

Next, you must register the component through registration.php.

Step 3: Package and generate the component

It is time to work with the directory of your extension, let’s apply a zip operation as the following snippet to add a package:

zip -r vendor-name_package-name-1.0.0.zip package-path/ -x 'package-path/.git/*'

There are some notes in the zip operation:

Don’t leave white spaces among the words
Insert alphanumeric characters as dashes

Like that, your extension package will be fetched from any valid GitHub URL.

Step 4: View sample composer.json

File: composer.json

{
  "name": "mageplaza/magento-2-seo-extension",
  "description": "Magento 2 SEO extension",
  "require": {
    "php": "~5.5.0|~5.6.0|~7.0.0",
    "mageplaza/core-m2": "dev-master"
  },
  "type": "magento2-module",
  "version": "1.1.1",
  "license": [
    "OSL-3.0",
    "AFL-3.0"
  ],
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Mageplaza",
      "email": "[email protected]",
      "homepage": "https://www.mageplaza.com",
      "role": "Leader"
    }
  ],
  "autoload": {
    "files": [
      "registration.php"
    ],
    "psr-4": {
      "Mageplaza\\Seo\\": ""
    }
  }
}

File: composer.json

{
  "name": "mageplaza/magento-2-social-login",
  "description": "Magento 2 Social Login Extension",
  "require": {
    "php": "~5.5.0|~5.6.0|~7.0.0"
  },
  "type": "magento2-module",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "license": [
    "OSL-3.0",
    "AFL-3.0"
  ],
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Mageplaza",
      "email": "[email protected]",
      "homepage": "https://www.mageplaza.com",
      "role": "Leader"
    }
  ],
  "autoload": {
    "files": [
      "registration.php"
    ],
    "psr-4": {
      "Mageplaza\\SocialLogin\\": ""
    }
  }
}

Conclusion

That’s all about how to package module in Magento 2 by creating a composer file. I hope this tutorial is helpful for you. If you get any issue while following all the steps above, feel free to let me know.

Thanks for reading!

Sam Nguyen

Sam is the CEO & co-founder of Mageplaza, a company established to support Magento merchants with different powerful tools and resources. Sam Nguyen is also the CEO & founder of Avada Commerce, an e-commerce solution provider headquartered in Singapore – aiming to support more than a million online businesses to grow and develop.

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