How to get PHP CodeSniffer for Drupal working in PhpStorm

README.md

Step 1

Create file called phpcs.xml.dist to your repository root with following content:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<ruleset name="Drupal Standard">
  <description>A Drupal coding standard</description>
  <config name="drupal_core_version" value="8"/>
  <rule ref="./vendor/drupal/coder/coder_sniffer/Drupal"/>
  <rule ref="./vendor/drupal/coder/coder_sniffer/DrupalPractice"/>
  <arg name="extensions" value="php,module,inc,install,js,theme,twig,yml"/>
  <file>./drush</file>
  <file>./public/modules/custom</file>
  <file>./public/themes/custom</file>
  <!--<file>./tests</file>-->
  <exclude-pattern>*/contrib/*</exclude-pattern>
  <exclude-pattern>*/dist/*</exclude-pattern>
  <exclude-pattern>*/node_modules/*</exclude-pattern>
  <exclude-pattern>*/vendor/*</exclude-pattern>
</ruleset>

Step 2

Require package squizlabs/php_codesniffer with Composer. PhpStorm uses this to autodetect that PHP_CodeSniffer is used.

composer require --dev squizlabs/php_codesniffer

Note! Package already exists as it's required by drupal/core-dev-pinned and multiple others. It's just needed on the root level of composer.lock to PhpStorm to autodetect it.

Step 3

Add file extensions to check in Settings >> PHP >> Quality Tools >> PHP_CodeSniffer

This is needed as PhpStorm does not autoconfigure these from phpcs.xml.dist.

Step 4 (if needed)

Sometimes it is needed to re-index site to get it working.

• Close PhpStorm
• Clear settings for the project: rm -rf .idea
• Open PhpStorm and project again

phpstorm.php

<?php

/**
 * @file
 * Configure PhpStorm plugin for PHP Code Sniffer.
 */

$xmlPHPCodeSniffer = 'phpcs.xml.dist';
$xmlFilePhpStorm = '.idea/php.xml';

if (file_exists($xmlPHPCodeSniffer) && file_exists($xmlFilePhpStorm)) {
  $xmlPHPCodeSniffer = simplexml_load_file($xmlPHPCodeSniffer);
  $xpath = '//ruleset/arg[@name="extensions"]';
  $node = $xmlPHPCodeSniffer->xpath($xpath);
  $extensions = $node[0]['value'];

  if ($extensions) {
    $xmlPhpStorm = simplexml_load_file($xmlFilePhpStorm);
    $xpath = '//project/component[@name="PHPCodeSnifferOptionsConfiguration"]/option[@name="extensions"]';
    $node = $xmlPhpStorm->xpath($xpath);

    if (isset($node[0]['value'])) {
      $node[0]['value'] = $extensions;
      $xmlPhpStorm->asXML($xmlFilePhpStorm);
    }
  }
}