Main goal of project `zero config application` is no more respected

[llaville]

Bug report

Main goal of project zero config application is no more respected.

Question	Answer
Box version	4.6.10
PHP version	8.3.29
Platform with version	Ubuntu 24.4 LTS on Docker
Github Repo	- https://github.com/TomasVotruba/lines

I want to build a PHAR copy of a project that not maintained by me, and that do not add BOX support (yet) for test purpose, and I can't !

The main reason is the dump-autoload configuration setting.

See related issue I got with #1507

Actual results

Output

    ____
   / __ )____  _  __
  / __  / __ \| |/_/
 / /_/ / /_/ />  <
/_____/\____/_/|_|


Box version 4.6.10@6dc6a13 2025-10-31 18:40:22 UTC

 // Loading without a configuration file.

🔨  Building the PHAR "/shared/backups/github/lines/bin/lines.phar"

? Checking Composer compatibility
    > Supported version detected
? No compactor to register
? Adding main file: /shared/backups/github/lines/bin/lines
? Adding requirements checker
? Adding binary files
    > No file found
? Auto-discover files? Yes
? Exclude dev files? Yes
? Adding files
    > 583 file(s)
? Generating new stub
  - Using shebang line: #!/usr/bin/env php
  - Using banner:
    > Generated by Humbug Box 4.6.10@6dc6a13.
    >
    > @link https://github.com/humbug/box
? Dumping the Composer autoloader

In ComposerOrchestrator.php line 85:

  Could not dump the autoloader.


In ComposerOrchestrator.php line 85:

  The command "'/usr/local/bin/composer' 'dump-autoload' '--classmap-authoritative' '--no-dev' '--ansi'" failed.

  Exit Code: 1(General error)

  Working directory: /tmp/box/Box58181

  Output:
  ================


  Error Output:
  ================
  Composer could not detect the root package (tomasvotruba/lines) version, defaulting to '1.0.0'. See https://getcomposer.org/root-ve
  rsion
  Composer could not detect the root package (tomasvotruba/lines) version, defaulting to '1.0.0'. See https://getcomposer.org/root-ve
  rsion

  In AutoloadGenerator.php line 1433:

    require(/tmp/box/Box58181/vendor/phpstan/phpstan/bootstrap.php): Failed to open stream: No such file or directory


  dump-autoload [-o|--optimize] [-a|--classmap-authoritative] [--apcu] [--apcu-prefix APCU-PREFIX] [--dry-run] [--dev] [--no-dev] [--ign
  ore-platform-req IGNORE-PLATFORM-REQ] [--ignore-platform-reqs] [--strict-psr] [--strict-ambiguous]


compile [--debug] [--no-parallel] [--sort-compiled-files] [--no-restart] [--dev] [--no-config] [--with-docker] [--composer-bin COMPOSER-BIN] [--allow-composer-check-failure] [-c|--config CONFIG] [-d|--working-dir WORKING-DIR]

Expected results

Output

    ____
   / __ )____  _  __
  / __  / __ \| |/_/
 / /_/ / /_/ />  <
/_____/\____/_/|_|


Box version 4.6.10@6dc6a13 2025-10-31 18:40:22 UTC

 // Loading the configuration file "/shared/backups/github/lines/box.json".

🔨  Building the PHAR "/shared/backups/github/lines/bin/lines.phar"

? Skipping the Composer compatibility check: the autoloader is not dumped
? No compactor to register
? Adding main file: /shared/backups/github/lines/bin/lines
? Adding requirements checker
? Adding binary files
    > No file found
? Auto-discover files? Yes
? Exclude dev files? No
? Adding files
    > 8925 file(s)
? Generating new stub
  - Using shebang line: #!/usr/bin/env php
  - Using banner:
    > Generated by Humbug Box 4.6.10@6dc6a13.
    >
    > @link https://github.com/humbug/box
? Skipping dumping the Composer autoloader
? Removing the Composer dump artefacts
? Compressing with the algorithm "GZ"
    > Warning: the extension "zlib" will now be required to execute the PHAR
? Setting file permissions to 0755
* Done.

No recommendation found.
No warning found.

 // PHAR: 8958 files (13.04MB)
 // You can inspect the generated PHAR with the "info" command.

 // Memory usage: 28.83MB (peak: 92.34MB), time: 12s

I must add these configuration to build a running PHAR copy

box.json

{
   "compression": "GZ",
   "dump-autoload": false,
   "files": [
       "bin/lines",
       "bin/lines.php"
   ],
   "directories": [
       "src",
       "views",
       "vendor"
   ]
}

[theofidry]

See related issue I got with #1507

Could you re-explain the actual issue? Because as far as I'm concerned we discussed 4 different things in there and they had nothing to do with each other, so I do not know which one you mean.

Also just a remainder that besides captainhook which used Composer scripts for validating things, unless the project in question does use them, I'd highly question disabling dump-autoload, it's extremely heavy handed and quite error prone: you're cherry-picking files, the autoloader can (and most likely will) get out of sync with the PHAR bundling process, so you're potentially shipping a broken Composer autoloader.

[llaville]

Forget first issue #1507.

This report tell us that BOX is not a no zero config application. This is the main objective of BOX right ? Unless you consider is no more right ?

Normally we should be able to build a PHAR copy of any Composer application/library with to write a box.json config file.

Actually this is not TRUE : check with at least this project https://github.com/TomasVotruba/lines

[theofidry]

This is the main objective of BOX right

No, the main objective is to provide a sensible and easy to use tool to build PHARs, with all the annoying things it can entail (e.g. the requirement checker, allowing to scope, reduce the size of the PHAR).

Making it zero config is not a goal in and of itself. I want it to be possible for simple cases though indeed.

Actually this is not TRUE : check with at least this project https://github.com/TomasVotruba/lines

Indeed. And I'm happy to consider changes to make it easier in such cases.

Currently I can tell there is 3 things that would make it hard (for TomasVotruba/lines):

• There is two bin files: how to decide which one is the real one?
• There is views which are used by the code, but nonexistent from Composer point of view.
• There is a scoper.php configuration file: which means we could register the PhpScoper processor, but scoping is a delicate process, I would let the user decide what to do and how.