README

List of needed patches for Varbase used packages with Composer Patches.

Composer plugin and curated patch list for Varbase. Built on top of cweagans/composer-patches v2 with three additions that v2 dropped or never had:

• Wildcard ignore-dependency-patches (e.g. drupal/*).
• Allowlist allowed-dependency-patches — only listed packages contribute dependency-declared patches. Defaults to ["vardot/varbase-patches"].
• patches-ignore restored from cweagans v1 — drop a specific URL declared by a given dependency.

Plus two Composer commands to convert remote merge-request URLs into local timestamped patch files (./patches/<package>--YYYY-MM-DD--<issue>--mr-<n>.patch).

Quick start

composer require vardot/varbase-patches:~11.0.0

{
  "config": {
    "allow-plugins": {
      "cweagans/composer-patches": true,
      "vardot/varbase-patches": true
    }
  },
  "extra": {
    "enable-patching": true,
    "composer-exit-on-patch-failure": true,
    "composer-patches": {
      "allowed-dependency-patches": ["vardot/varbase-patches"]
    },
    "patches": {}
  }
}

composer install

Result: only patches declared by vardot/varbase-patches (and your project's own extra.patches) apply. Patches declared by other dependencies are skipped — no more aborted installs from stale third-party .patch URLs.

Versions

The patches branch carries patch files only — do not require it.

Composer commands

The plugin registers two Composer commands to convert remote GitLab merge-request URLs in your patch lists into local timestamped .patch files under ./patches/. They replace the Drush commands previously shipped in varbase_core (see docs/migration-from-drush.md).

Clean up the root composer.json file

• Name: varbase-patches:cleanup:patches
• Aliases: var-ccup
• Description: Detects any merge request patches in the root composer.json extra.patches block, downloads them to the local ./patches/ folder with a timestamped filename, and updates the root composer.json to use the local patch file.

composer varbase-patches:cleanup:patches

or

composer var-ccup

Clean up the external patches-file JSON file

• Name: varbase-patches:cleanup:patches-file
• Aliases: var-ccupf
• Description: Detects any merge request patches in the JSON file referenced by extra.patches-file, downloads them to the local ./patches/ folder with a timestamped filename, and rewrites the patches-file JSON to use the local patch file.

composer varbase-patches:cleanup:patches-file

or

composer var-ccupf

Handling Varbase Patches Ignoring

To exclude a specific patch declared by vardot/varbase-patches (e.g. when you want to replace it with an improved version, or skip it entirely), add a patches-ignore block to your root composer.json:

{
  "extra": {
    "patches-ignore": {
      "vardot/varbase-patches": {
        "drupal/core": {
          "Issue #2869592: Disabled update module shouldn't produce a status report warning":
          "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/2869592-remove-update-warning-7.patch"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Schema: { "<source-pkg>": { "<target-pkg>": { "<description>": "<url>" } } }. Matching is done by URL — the description string is informational. A flat array of URLs ({ "<source-pkg>": { "<target-pkg>": ["<url>", ...] } }) is also accepted.

This is the v1-style patches-ignore from cweagans/composer-patches, restored by this plugin on top of v2.

Filename convention

[package name]--[Date]--[issue number]--[MR number].patch

Examples:

• drupal-core--2026-05-10--3539178--mr-12890.patch
• ctools--2026-05-10--3572317--mr-85.patch
• redirect--2026-05-10--2879648--mr-109.patch

Documentation

• Overview
• Installation
• Configuration
• Commands
• Architecture
• Migration from Drush
• Troubleshooting

External: https://docs.varbase.vardot.com/developers/varbase-patches

AI assistant context

This repository ships its own AI-assistant context so contributors get the same project conventions as core maintainers:

• AGENTS.md — vendor-neutral entry point. Works with any AI coding assistant (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Aider, Continue.dev, Copilot Workspace, …).
• CLAUDE.md — Claude Code-specific entry point.
• .claude/agents/varbase-patches.md — Claude sub-agent.
• .claude/skills/composer-patches/SKILL.md, .claude/skills/patch-management/SKILL.md — Claude skills.

Requirements

• PHP >=8.1
• composer-plugin-api ^2.0
• cweagans/composer-patches ~2.0

License

GPL-2.0-or-later. See LICENSE.

Maintainer

Vardot — https://github.com/vardot