Dependencies in Drupal info.yml

In order to generate composer.json files for Drupal projects, Drupal.org uses specific rules defined in a module’s info.yml file. These dependencies are used to manage the module’s external libraries and Drupal core module requirements.

Declaring Dependencies

If your module depends on another Drupal module, you should declare it in your module’s info.yml file using the following format:

dependencies:
  - drupal:webform

This tells the packager to include drupal/webform as a Composer dependency for your module. The Drupal.org packaging system resolves drupal:webform to the correct package name and version.

You can find the correct Drupal.org project shortname to use for dependency declarations on the project page near the bottom. For example, the Webform project is webform. The corresponding composer package name is drupal/webform.

Incorrect Dependency Declaration

If you were to specify a dependency like this:

dependencies:
  - whatevernameyouwish:webform

The Drupal.org packaging routine will automatically correct it to drupal:webform during the packaging process.

Soft Dependencies (Drupal Core Only)

There may be situations where you want to express a dependency for Drupal core to manage during module installation and enabling, but not require Composer to manage it. This is sometimes referred to as a “soft dependency”. In such cases, you can use the simplified format:

dependencies:
  - webform

In this scenario:

• Composer will not include any dependency.
• Drupal core will require that the webform module be present in the codebase before your module can be enabled. Drupal will check for the existence of the module when resolving dependencies during module installation.

This approach is useful when a module’s functionality degrades gracefully if another module is not present, but is enhanced if it is.