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By hand: the smallest extension in five minutes

Three files make a complete extension - ezinfo.php, extension.xml and one settings file. Create them, check them, switch the extension on, see it in Setup > Extensions and see its setting win, then put it under Git.

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By hand: the smallest extension in five minutes

Tutorial 9. This is the smallest useful extension: it has metadata, so the administration knows what it is, and one setting, so it changes something you can see. Every later tutorial adds to the same folder, extension/mysite_hello. The files below passed php -l and xmllint.

1. The folder 

mkdir -p extension/mysite_hello/settings
cd extension/mysite_hello
git init

2. ezinfo.php 

<?php
class mysite_helloInfo
{
    public static function info()
    {
        return array(
            'Name'      => "My Site Hello",
            'Version'   => "0.1.0",
            'Copyright' => "Copyright (C) 2026 Your Organization",
            'License'   => "GNU General Public License v2.0 (or any later version)",
            'Info_url'  => "https://github.com/your-organization/mysite_hello"
        );
    }
}

The class is the folder name plus Info; the keys are quoted; info() is static (ezinfo.php).

3. extension.xml 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<software>
    <metadata>
        <name>My Site Hello</name>
        <version>0.1.0</version>
        <copyright>Copyright (C) 2026 Your Organization</copyright>
        <license>GNU General Public License v2.0 (or any later version)</license>
        <info_url>https://github.com/your-organization/mysite_hello</info_url>
    </metadata>
</software>

4. One setting

settings/site.ini.append.php:

<?php /* #?ini charset="utf-8"?

[SiteSettings]
SiteName=Hello from mysite_hello

*/ ?>

5. Check 

php -l ezinfo.php
php -l settings/site.ini.append.php
xmllint --noout extension.xml
cd ../..

Expected: two No syntax errors detected lines and nothing from xmllint.

6. Switch it on 

./console exp:ini add 'site.ini/ExtensionSettings/ActiveExtensions[]' mysite_hello global
php bin/php/ezcache.php --clear-tag=ini

7. See it

  • Setup > Extensions: a card "My Site Hello", version 0.1.0, your license and website.

  • The setting:

    ./console exp:ini where site.ini/SiteSettings/SiteName

    lists your file. Whether it wins depends on the order: a later file (the global override, or an extension listed before yours) may set SiteName too; the last line of the output says which value is in effect. See Settings scopes and the order they win in.

8. Commit 

git -C extension/mysite_hello add ezinfo.php extension.xml settings/site.ini.append.php
git -C extension/mysite_hello commit -m "Added: The mysite_hello extension with its metadata and a site name"

Undo 

./console exp:ini rem 'site.ini/ExtensionSettings/ActiveExtensions[]' mysite_hello global
php bin/php/ezcache.php --clear-tag=ini

The next tutorials keep the extension active and add a template operator, a fetch function, a module and more. The SiteName line was only for this exercise: remove it before you continue.

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