PIE is the official installer for PHP extensions, which replaces PECL (which is now deprecated). PIE is distributed as a PHAR, just like Composer, and works in a similar way to Composer, but it installs PHP extensions (PHP Modules or Zend Extensions) to your PHP installation, rather than pulling PHP packages into your project or library.

You will need PHP 8.1 or newer to run PIE, but PIE can install an extension to any other installed PHP version.

On Linux/OSX, if any build tools needed are missing, PIE will ask if you would like to automatically install them first (as of PIE 1.4.0).

On Windows, you do not need any build toolchain installed, since PHP extensions for Windows are distributed as pre-compiled packages containing the extension DLL.

• Download pie.phar either:
  • latest stable release
  • latest unstable nightly
• Verify the PHAR's source with gh attestation verify --owner php pie.phar
• You may then invoke PIE with php pie.phar <command>

Further installation details can be found in the usage docs. This documentation assumes you have moved pie.phar into your $PATH, e.g. /usr/local/bin/pie on non-Windows systems or created an alias in your shell RC file.

This will install PIE into /usr/local/bin/pie on a non-Windows system:

curl -fL --output /tmp/pie.phar https://github.com/php/pie/releases/latest/download/pie.phar \
  && gh attestation verify --owner php /tmp/pie.phar \
  && sudo mv /tmp/pie.phar /usr/local/bin/pie \
  && sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/pie

You can install an extension using the install command. For example, to install the example_pie_extension extension, you would run:

$ pie install asgrim/example-pie-extension
🥧 PHP Installer for Extensions (PIE) 1.4.0, from The PHP Foundation
This command may need elevated privileges, and may prompt you for your password.
You are running PHP 8.5.3
Target PHP installation: 8.5.3 nts, on Linux/OSX/etc x86_64 (from /usr/bin/php8.5)
Found package: asgrim/example-pie-extension:2.0.9 which provides ext-example_pie_extension
Extracted asgrim/example-pie-extension:2.0.9 source to: /path/to/example-pie-extension
phpize complete.
Configure complete with options: --with-php-config=/usr/bin/php-config8.5
Build complete: /path/to/example-pie-extension/modules/example_pie_extension.so
Install complete: /usr/lib/php/20250925/example_pie_extension.so
✅ Extension is enabled and loaded in /usr/bin/php8.5
$

When in your PHP project, you can install any missing top-level extensions:

$ pie install
🥧 PHP Installer for Extensions (PIE) 1.4.0, from The PHP Foundation
You are running PHP 8.5.0
Target PHP installation: 8.5.0 nts, on Linux/OSX/etc x86_64 (from /usr/local/bin/php)
Checking extensions for your project asgrim/demo-php-project (path: /demos/demo-php-project)
requires: ext-curl:* ✅ Already installed
requires: ext-example_pie_extension:^2.0 🚫 Missing

The following packages may be suitable, which would you like to install: 
  [0] None
  [1] asgrim/example-pie-extension: Example PIE extension
 > 1
  example_pie_extension> You are running PHP 8.5.0
  example_pie_extension> Target PHP installation: 8.5.0 nts, on Linux/OSX/etc x86_64 (from /usr/local/bin/php)
  example_pie_extension> Found package: asgrim/example-pie-extension:2.0.9 which provides ext-example_pie_extension
  example_pie_extension> Extracted asgrim/example-pie-extension:2.0.9 source to: /path/to/example-pie-extension
  example_pie_extension> phpize complete.
  example_pie_extension> Configure complete with options: --with-php-config=/usr/local/bin/php-config
  example_pie_extension> Build complete: /path/to/example-pie-extension/modules/example_pie_extension.so
  example_pie_extension> Install complete: /usr/local/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20250925/example_pie_extension.so
  example_pie_extension> ✅ Extension is enabled and loaded in /usr/local/bin/php

Finished checking extensions.

A list of extensions that support PIE can be found on https://packagist.org/extensions.

• If you have an idea, question, or need help, please use the Discussions.
  • Please check with us first before contributing new features - it may be something we're already working on, as the PHP Foundation is actively developing this too, and there are new features already in the pipeline...
• If you have a bug to report, please use the Issues.

If you are an extension maintainer wanting to add PIE support to your extension, please read extension-maintainers.

The full documentation for PIE can be found in usage docs.