How To Install Plugins

The usual way to install a CakePHP plugin is with Composer. Plugins that are not published as Composer packages can be copied into your application, or added with Git.

But don't forget to Enable Plugins afterwards.

Plugins are installed in the plugins/ directory at the root of your project. CakePHP looks for plugins in plugins/ and also in the application's Plugin/ directory (app/Plugin/ in the legacy app/ layout), so plugins/ works with both application layouts.

Composer

If you aren't familiar with the dependency management tool named Composer, take the time to read the Composer documentation.

Before installing a plugin, check Repositories and Plugins for a PHP 8 compatible fork. To install the DebugKit plugin, for example, run:

composer require --dev pieceofcake2/debug_kit

or add it as a dependency to your project's composer.json and run composer update:

{
    "require-dev": {
        "pieceofcake2/debug_kit": "^2.2"
    }
}

NOTE

Use "require-dev" if you only want to include the plugin for your development environment, as in this example. Use "require" for plugins your application needs in production.

CakePHP 2 plugins are published as packages of the type cakephp-plugin, which composer/installers installs into a plugin directory rather than into vendor/. The following settings in your composer.json are required so that each plugin is installed into plugins/<Name>/. The pieceofcake2/app skeleton already contains them:

{
    "config": {
        "allow-plugins": {
            "composer/installers": true
        }
    },
    "extra": {
        "installer-paths": {
            "plugins/{$name}/": ["type:cakephp-plugin"]
        }
    }
}

Since Composer 2.2, Composer plugins only run when they are listed in config.allow-plugins, so composer/installers must be allowed there. If it is not allowed, the plugin ends up in vendor/. Without the installer-paths setting, composer/installers puts the plugin in a Plugin/ directory at the project root. In both cases CakePlugin::load() cannot find the plugin.

In an application that uses the legacy app/ layout, set the installer path to app/Plugin/ instead:

"extra": {
    "installer-paths": {
        "app/Plugin/{$name}/": ["type:cakephp-plugin"]
    }
}

Manually

To install a plugin that is not available through Composer, copy the plugin folder into your plugins/ folder. If you're installing a plugin named 'ContactManager' then you should have a folder in plugins/ named 'ContactManager' under which are the plugin's View, Model, Controller, webroot and any other directories.

Git Clone

If the plugin you want to install is hosted as a Git repo, you can also clone it. Let's assume the imaginary plugin 'ContactManager' is hosted on GitHub. You could clone it by executing the following command in your plugins/ folder:

git clone https://github.com/example/contact-manager.git ContactManager

Git Submodule

If the plugin you want to install is hosted as a Git repo, but you prefer not to clone it, you can also integrate it as a Git submodule. Execute the following commands in the root folder of your project:

git submodule add https://github.com/example/contact-manager.git plugins/ContactManager
git submodule update --init

Enable the Plugin

Plugins need to be loaded manually in config/bootstrap.php (app/Config/bootstrap.php in the legacy app/ layout).

You can either load one by one or all of them in a single call:

CakePlugin::loadAll(); // Loads all plugins at once
CakePlugin::load('ContactManager'); // Loads a single plugin

loadAll() loads all plugins available, while allowing you to set certain settings for specific plugins. load() works similarly, but only loads the plugins you explicitly specify.

Classes of plugins that are autoloaded by Composer can be used right away. For plugins that don't support Composer autoloading, load their classes with App::uses() as before, for example App::uses('MyPluginHelper', 'MyPlugin.View/Helper');. Check the plugin's documentation to see which applies.