yii2/docs/internals/getting-started.md

Getting started with Yii2 development

The best way to have a locally runnable webapp that uses codebase cloned from main repository is to use yii2-dev Composer package. Here's how to do it:

1. git clone git@github.com:yiisoft/yii2-app-basic.git.
2. Remove .git directory from cloned directory.
3. Change composer.json. Instead of all stable requirements add just one "yiisoft/yii2-dev": "*".
4. Execute composer create-project. Do not add --prefer-dist to the command since it will not download git repository then.
5. Now you have working playground that uses latest code.

Note that requirements of extensions that come with yii2-dev are not loaded automatically. If you want to use an extension, check if there are dependencies suggested for it and add them to your composer.json. You can see suggested packages by running composer show yiisoft/yii2-dev.

If you're core developer there's no extra step needed. You can change framework code under vendor/yiisoft/yii2-dev and push it to main repository.

If you're not core developer or want to use your own fork for pull requests:

1. Fork https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2 and get your own repository address such as git://github.com/username/yii2.git.
2. Edit vendor/yiisoft/yii2-dev/.git/config. Change remote origin url to your own:

[remote "origin"]
  url = git://github.com/username/yii2.git

Hint: The workflow of forking a package and pushing changes back into your fork and then sending a pull-request to the maintainer is the same for all extensions you require via composer.

Please refer to Git workflow for Yii 2 contributors for details about creating pull requests.

An Alternative way

1. Clone your fork of yii2 git clone git@github.com:<yourname>/yii2.
2. Change into the repo folder cd yii2.
3. run ./build/build app/link basic to install composer dependecies for the basic app. This command will install foreign composer packages as normal but will link the yii2 repo to the currently checked out repo, so you have one instance of all the code installed.
4. Do the same for the advanced app if needed: ./build/build app/link advanced This command will also be used to update dependecies, it runs composer update internally.
5. Now you have a working playground for hacking on Yii 2.

You may also add the yii2 upstream repo to pull the latest changes:

git remote add upstream https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2.git

Unit tests

To run the unit tests you have to install composer packages for the dev-repo. Run composer update in the repo root directory to get the latest packages.

You can now execute unit tests by running ./vendor/bin/phpunit.

You may limit the tests to a group of tests you are working on e.g. to run only tests for the validators and redis ./vendor/bin/phpunit --group=validators,redis.

Extensions

To work on extensions you have to install them in the application you want to try them in. Just add them to the composer.json as you would normally do e.g. add "yiisoft/yii2-redis": "*" to the require section of the basic app. Running ./build/build app/link basic will install the extension and its dependecies and create a symlink to extensions/redis so you are not working the composer vendor dir but the yii2 repo directly.