Symfony Thanks is a Composer plugin that automatically stars the GitHub repositories of your PHP package dependencies.
The tool solves the problem of acknowledging the work of open-source maintainers by automating the process of giving GitHub stars. When you run the command, it scans your Composer dependencies, identifies which ones are hosted on GitHub, and stars their repositories. This provides a lightweight but meaningful way to show appreciation for the packages you rely on. Package authors can also configure their own packages to forward stars to other repositories they depend on by adding a thanks entry in the extra section of their composer.json file.
The tool is straightforward to adopt for any PHP developer using Composer. It works as a dev dependency that can be installed globally or per-project. The primary limitation is that it currently supports only GitHub-hosted repositories, so dependencies hosted elsewhere will not receive stars. This makes it most useful for projects that rely heavily on the PHP ecosystem's GitHub-based packages.
The project maintains a minimal but functional codebase with occasional updates addressing edge cases and improvements. Development activity shows responsiveness to issues and pull requests, with changes typically focused on compatibility and reliability rather than feature expansion. The tool remains stable in its core functionality, reflecting its narrow and well-defined scope.
