PHP Version Action

A GitHub Action that automatically determines PHP versions for your workflows by reading your composer.json file. This action eliminates the need to hardcode PHP versions in your GitHub Actions workflows, making them more maintainable and automatically up-to-date.

Overview

From your composer.json and the released versions of PHP (read from PHP.Watch), this action determines a matrix of all the versions to be used as a build matrix in your GitHub Actions.

It also exposes the minimal and latest versions as variables to your workflow.

• Automatic PHP Version Detection: Reads PHP version requirements from your composer.json file
• Smart Version Matrix: Generates a matrix of PHP versions from minimum to latest supported
• Real-time Updates: Fetches current PHP version information from PHP.watch
• Flexible Outputs: Provides minimal, latest, and matrix versions for different use cases
• SemVer Compatible: Properly handles version constraints like >=8.1, ^8.0, etc.

Inputs

Name	Description	Required	Default
working-directory	Directory containing your composer.json file	Yes	.

Outputs

Name	Description	Example
composer-php-version	The PHP version requirement from composer.json	>=8.1 <=8.4
minimal	The minimum supported PHP version meeting the requirements	8.1
latest	The latest available PHP version meeting the requirements	8.4
matrix	A (stringified) array of PHP versions from min to latest	["8.1", "8.2", "8.3", "8.4"]

📖 Examples

Use Specific Version

Let's say you specified >=8.1 as PHP requirements in your composer.json file. 8.1 is the minimal supported version and you want your workflow to set up PHP with the version 8.1 using the shivammathur/setup-php action:

name: My workflow
on: [push, pull_request]

permissions:
  contents: read

jobs:
  my-workflow:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v5

      - name: Get PHP Versions
        id: php-version
        uses: antfroger/php-version-action@v1

      - name: Setup PHP (Minimal)
        uses: shivammathur/setup-php@v2
        with:
          php-version: ${{ steps.php-version.outputs.minimal }}
          tools: composer:v2

      - name: Test
        run: echo "run your tests"

If you want to do the same but using the latest PHP version that meets the requirements defined in composer.json, you simply need to replace steps.php-version.outputs.minimal by steps.php-version.outputs.latest

Multi-version Testing

Let's say you want to run the unit tests on all versions starting from the minimum defined in your composer.json file until the latest released one, you need to run the version lookup as a separate job:

name: Testing matrix
on: [push, pull_request]

permissions:
  contents: read

jobs:
  php-versions:
    name: Lookup PHP versions
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    outputs:
      matrix: ${{ steps.versions.outputs.matrix }}
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v5
      - uses: antfroger/php-version-action@v1
        id: versions

  test:
    name: Test PHP ${{ matrix.php-version }} on ${{ matrix.os }}
    runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}
    needs: php-versions

    strategy:
      matrix:
        os: [ubuntu-latest] # add more os
        php-version: ${{ fromJSON(needs.php-versions.outputs.matrix) }}

    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v5

      - name: Setup PHP
        uses: shivammathur/setup-php@v2
        with:
          php-version: ${{ matrix.php-version }}
          coverage: xdebug
          tools: composer:v2

      - name: Test
        run: echo "run your tests"

Custom Working Directory

If your composer.json is in a subdirectory:

- name: Get PHP Versions
  id: php-versions
  uses: antfroger/php-version-action@v1
  with:
    working-directory: ./packages/my-package

Supported Version Constraints

The action supports all the constraints supported by Composer

Summary

The action writes a GitHub Actions Job Summary with output values it identified.

Areas for Improvement

1. Add an input unstable to include unstable versions (beta, release candidates)
2. Add an input unsupported to include old versions not longer supported

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PHP Version Action is inspired by Go version action