Contracts Laravel Package

Getting Started

This package provides interfaces (contracts) used by composer-unused, a tool to detect unused Composer dependencies. As a developer, you’ll rarely interact with it directly — it’s consumed by the main composer-unused CLI tool. To begin:

1. Install the tool via composer require --dev composer-unused/composer-unused.
2. Run vendor/bin/composer-unused to scan your project for unused dependencies.
3. Review the output and update your composer.json accordingly.
   The composer-unused/contracts package is installed transitively as a dependency and contains interfaces like FilterInterface, ReportInterface, and DependencyInterface — only relevant if you’re extending or customizing the tool.

Implementation Patterns

• Custom Reporters: Implement composer_unused/contracts’ ReportInterface to generate custom output formats (e.g., JSON, GitHub Actions annotations, or Markdown summaries).
• Dependency Filters: Create classes implementing FilterInterface to exclude specific dependencies (e.g., dev-only packages, framework internals) from analysis.
• Integrations: Use in CI via custom GitHub Actions or pre-commit hooks; the contracts ensure stable API surface for integrations even as the tool evolves.
• Testing: Write unit tests that mock or implement contract interfaces to validate your custom scanner logic (e.g., verifying a new filter works with real PackageInterface instances).

Gotchas and Tips

• Version Lock: Since contracts are MIT and stable, version pinning isn’t strictly needed — but avoid ^2.0 without verifying compatibility with your version of composer-unused.
• Interface Stability: The project uses stable interfaces — but always check the CHANGELOG of composer-unused/composer-unused when upgrading, as breaking changes may ripple into the contracts.
• DI Containers: When building custom implementations, ensure your filter/reporter classes are auto-wired or explicitly bound in the tool’s DI container (usually via src/Config.php or CLI options).
• No Direct Usage: You almost never call new SomeContract() — the contracts only matter when extending. If your project doesn’t require customization, ignore this package entirely.
• Debugging: Enable verbose mode (-vvv) in composer-unused to see how filters/reports are instantiated — helpful when your custom implementation isn’t invoked.