The recommended way to install Strauss is as a .phar file located in a bin/ directory. This method includes a Composer script that automatically downloads the .phar if it is missing.

1. Prepare the directory: Create a bin/ directory and a .gitkeep file to ensure the directory is tracked by Git.
2. Ignore the binary: Add bin/strauss.phar to your .gitignore file.
3. Configure Composer: Add the prefix-namespaces script and relevant Composer hooks to your composer.json to automate downloading, prefixing, and autoloading.

# Create bin directory
mkdir bin
touch bin/.gitkeep

Add to .gitignore

bin/strauss.phar

Add to composer.json scripts

"scripts": { "prefix-namespaces": [ "sh -c 'test -f ./bin/strauss.phar || mkdir bin && curl -o bin/strauss.phar -L -C - https://github.com/BrianHenryIE/strauss/releases/latest/download/strauss.phar'", "@php bin/strauss.phar", "@php -d memory_limit=1G bin/strauss.phar --info", "@composer dump-autoload" ], "post-install-cmd": [ "@prefix-namespaces" ], "post-update-cmd": [ "@prefix-namespaces" ], "post-autoload-dump": [ "@php bin/strauss.phar include-autoloader" ] }

Strauss can be configured by adding an extra/strauss object to your composer.json. While it works with zero configuration by inferring values from your autoload or name keys, you can customize the prefixing behavior, target directory, and exclusions.

Key inferred settings:

• target_directory: The directory where prefixed files are copied (defaults to vendor-prefixed).
• namespace_prefix: The string prefixed to each namespace.
• classmap_prefix: The string prefixed to class names in the global namespace.
• packages: The list of packages to process. If omitted, all packages in the require key are included.
• classmap_output: A boolean determining if Strauss creates autoload-classmap.php and autoload.php. It defaults to true if target_directory is NOT in your project's autoload key, and false otherwise.

"extra": {
    "strauss": {
        "target_directory": "vendor-prefixed",
        "namespace_prefix": "BrianHenryIE\\My_Project\\",
        "classmap_prefix": "BrianHenryIE_My_Project_",
        "constant_prefix": "BHMP_",
        "packages": [],
        "update_call_sites": false,
        "include_root_autoload": false,
        "optimize_autoloader": true,
        "override_autoload": {},
        "exclude_from_copy": {
            "packages": [],
            "namespaces": [],
            "file_patterns": []
        },
        "exclude_from_prefix": {
            "packages": [],
            "namespaces": [],
            "file_patterns": []
        },
        "exclude_constants": {
            "packages": [],
            "namespaces": [],
            "file_patterns": [],
            "constants": []
        },
        "exclude_from_string_rename": {
            "functions": []
        },
        "namespace_replacement_patterns" : {},
        "delete_vendor_packages": false,
        "delete_vendor_files": false,
        "exclude_git_files": true
    }
}

The following configuration keys are available within the extra/strauss object in composer.json.

### Core Settings
- `target_directory` (string): Directory to copy files to. Default: `vendor-prefixed`.
- `namespace_prefix` (string): Default string to prefix each namespace.
- `classmap_prefix` (string): Default string to prefix class names in the global namespace.
- `constant_prefix` (string): Prefix for `define()` calls (e.g., `define("A", 1)` -> `define("PREFIX_A", 1)`).
- `packages` (array): List of packages to process. If absent, all `require` packages are included.
- `update_call_sites` (bool|array): If `true`, updates PHP files in the project's `autoload` directories to use prefixed classes. If an `array`, uses specific paths.
- `include_root_autoload` (bool): If `true`, includes the project's root autoload section in the Strauss autoloader.
- `optimize_autoloader` (bool): If `true`, forces optimized/classmap-authoritative autoload generation. Default: `true`.
- `exclude_git_files` (bool): If `true`, skips files ignored by `.gitignore` or marked `export-ignore` in `.gitattributes`. Default: `true`.
- `delete_vendor_packages` (bool): If `true`, deletes the original vendor directories after processing. Default: `false`.
- `delete_vendor_files` (bool): If `true`, deletes files copied from vendor directories after processing. Default: `false`.
- `include_modified_date` (bool): Includes date in PHPdoc headers. Default: `true`.
- `include_author` (bool): Includes author name in PHPdoc headers. Default: `true`.

### Overrides and Exclusions
- `override_autoload` (dictionary): Keyed by package name; replaces the original package's `autoload` property.
- `exclude_from_copy` (object):
    - `packages` (array): Package names to skip.
    - `namespaces` (array): Exact match namespaces to skip.
    - `file_patterns` (array): Regex patterns for filenames to skip.
- `exclude_from_prefix` (object): Symbols in these files/packages won't be renamed (but their usage will be updated).
    - `file_patterns` (array): Regex patterns for file paths.
    - `packages` (array): Package names to exclude.
    - `namespaces` (array): Exact match namespaces to exclude.
- `exclude_constants` (object): Prevents prefixing of constants (e.g., `define` or `const`).
    - `packages` (array): Package names to exclude.
    - `namespaces` (array): Prefix match namespaces to exclude.
    - `file_patterns` (array): Regex patterns for file paths.
    - `constants` (array): Specific constant names to never prefix (e.g., `["WP_PLUGIN_DIR", "ABSPATH"]`).
- `exclude_from_string_rename` (object):
    - `functions` (array): Global function names to leave unchanged inside strings (e.g., `["value", "when"]`).
- `namespace_replacement_patterns` (dictionary): `preg_replace` patterns to use instead of `namespace_prefix`.