What causes "Could not find your composer.json file!" in symfony/thanks?

Run the command from the directory containing your composer.json (project root)

symfony/thanks · error · Exception

Could not find your composer.json file!

Error message

Could not find your composer.json file!

What it means

getDirectlyRequiredPackageNames() resolves composer.json via Factory::getComposerFile() and throws a plain \Exception when that file does not exist. The library reads require/require-dev package names from composer.json (to filter which repos to query via getRepositories), so without the file it cannot proceed. This is a fail-fast guard against running outside a Composer project.

Solutions

Run the command from the directory containing your composer.json (project root)
Create a composer.json in the current directory if it genuinely should be a project (composer init)
When using the library programmatically, chdir() to the project root or configure the Composer factory so Factory::getComposerFile() points at a real composer.json

Example fix

// before (wrong cwd)
$ cd subdirectory && composer funding   # Exception: Could not find your composer.json file!
// after
$ cd /path/to/project && composer funding

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

$composerJson = getcwd() . '/composer.json';
if (!is_file($composerJson)) {
    throw new RuntimeException("Run from your project root: {$composerJson} not found");
}

Try / catch

try {
    $repos = $client->getRepositories($urls);
} catch (\Exception $e) {
    if ($e->getMessage() === 'Could not find your composer.json file!') {
        fwrite(STDERR, 'Not in a Composer project: cd to your project root and retry.');
        exit(1);
    }
    throw $e;
}

Prevention

Run composer commands from the project root, not subdirectories
Verify composer.json exists alongside composer.lock before scripting library calls
When calling the API programmatically, set cwd or the COMPOSER env var to the project's composer.json path
Ensure composer.json is committed/present, not just composer.lock

When it happens

Trigger: Calling getRepositories() (which calls getDirectlyRequiredPackageNames()) from a working directory where composer.json does not exist at the path Factory::getComposerFile() resolves to — i.e. cwd is not a Composer project root.

Common situations: Running the composer command from a subdirectory or a directory with no composer.json, invoking the library programmatically outside a project, or a project that only has composer.lock (no composer.json).

Understand the failure class

Background: "Config file not found": what it means and how to fix it in docker-sync, Maven, Vagrant, Turborepo and other tools — this error's family across 60 libraries.

AI-assisted analysis of symfony/thanks@f455cc9ba4 (2026-09-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/4eb5773cb5b12fe2. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/GitHubClient.php:204

                    continue;
                }

                foreach ($error['path'] as $path) {
                    $failures += [$path => $error['message']];
                    unset($result['data'][$path]);
                }
            }
        }

        return isset($result['data']) ? $result['data'] : [];
    }

    private function getDirectlyRequiredPackageNames(): array
    {
        $file = new JsonFile(Factory::getComposerFile(), null, $this->io);

        if (!$file->exists()) {
            throw new \Exception('Could not find your composer.json file!');
        }

        $data = $file->read() + ['require' => [], 'require-dev' => []];
        $data = array_keys($data['require'] + $data['require-dev']);

        return array_combine($data, $data);
    }

    private function processChunks(array $urls, bool $withFundingLinks, ?array &$failures = null): array
    {
        $i = 0;
        $template = $withFundingLinks
            ? '_%d: repository(owner:"%s",name:"%s"){id,viewerHasStarred,fundingLinks{platform,url}}'."\n"
            : '_%d: repository(owner:"%s",name:"%s"){id,viewerHasStarred}'."\n";
        $graphql = '';

        $aliases = [];

View on GitHub (pinned to f455cc9ba4)