Introduction

Composer is a widely-used dependency and package manager for PHP. Composer provides an easy way to manage packages used by a WordPress site. Packages can be plugins, themes, other PHP libraries and even WordPress core itself.

At the most basic level, Composer requires:

• A list of dependencies
• A place to put the dependencies

There are different cases for using Composer to manage dependencies on a WordPress site, including:

• Manage dependencies for themes and plugins you’re currently developing
• Manage the themes and plugins currently used on the site
• Manage WordPress core updates
• Total site dependency management, including custom code

First Steps

Review the steps below before using this guide to create or manage updates on your Pantheon Composer-managed WordPress site.

1. Review Composer's documentation to understand how Composer can be used independently of WordPress.

2. Review Composer Fundamentals Dependencies.

3. Review Managing Core as Project Dependency.

More Resources

• Composer Fundamentals and WebOps Workflows
• Roots Bedrock