Using several plugins with Abilities API leads to a Warning

[timur987]

Summary

I noticed that a couple of plugins with composer dependencies to Abilities API start competing who will require the code.

Due to lack of rights to create a PR, here's a suggestion for a change.

Probably you guys know how to address that in a better way. If so, please let me know.

How to reproduce

I used CIAB setup with CIAB Admin and Big Sky where both of them had their own vendor/wordpress/abilities-api folders.

Suggested change (git diff)

diff --git a/abilities-api.php b/abilities-api.php
index ea087ab..5c65b61 100644
--- a/abilities-api.php
+++ b/abilities-api.php
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
  * Plugin URI:        https://github.com/WordPress/abilities-api
  * Description:       Provides a framework for registering and executing AI abilities in WordPress.
  * Requires at least: 6.8
- * Version:           0.5.0
+ * Version:           0.5.1
  * Requires PHP:      7.2
  * Author:            WordPress.org Contributors
  * Author URI:        https://github.com/WordPress/abilities-api/graphs/contributors
@@ -24,7 +24,8 @@
 /**
  * Shortcut constant to the path of this file.
  */
-define( 'WP_ABILITIES_API_DIR', plugin_dir_path( __FILE__ ) );
+if ( ! defined( 'WP_ABILITIES_API_DIR' ) ) {
+	define( 'WP_ABILITIES_API_DIR', plugin_dir_path( __FILE__ ) );
 
-
-require_once WP_ABILITIES_API_DIR . 'includes/bootstrap.php';
+	require_once WP_ABILITIES_API_DIR . 'includes/bootstrap.php';
+}

---

cc @gziolo

[justlevine]

Thanks for reporting this @timur987

I'm not sure what the reference to CIAB / Big Sky means in this context, but assumedly the issue is that those setups are including vendor/wordpress/abilities-api/abilities-api.php (the plugin wrapper) and not vendor/wordpress/abilities-api/includes/bootstrap.php (the library entrypoint).

PS: Looks like👆 is missing from the docs (we have the dependency instructions + version checking but not the require_once line), so at minimum we should update that. Along the lines of:

...
require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';

// Only include Abilities API for plugins who need it.
if ( ! function_exists( 'wp_register_ability' ) ) {
  require_once 'vendor/wordpress/abilities-api/includes/bootstrap.php';
}

We could change things to defined( 'WP_ABILITIES_API_DIR' ) || define( 'WP_ABILITIES_API_DIR, plugin_dir_path( __FILE__) ); (it's only used for assets currently), but considering how relatively popular the Composer antipattern is becoming, maybe it's good that this error throws as a way to enforce the separation of concerns in case there's other plugin-specific code we need to include in that file the future?

Either way 🤷

[timur987]

I'm not sure what the reference to CIAB / Big Sky means in this context, but assumedly the issue is that those setups are including vendor/wordpress/abilities-api/abilities-api.php (the plugin wrapper) and not vendor/wordpress/abilities-api/includes/bootstrap.php (the library entrypoint).

@justlevine, you are right. I used the the approach you have mentioned and it works well.

FYI, plugins used these approaches instead:

if ( file_exists( __DIR__ . '/vendor/wordpress/abilities-api/abilities-api.php' ) ) {
	require_once __DIR__ . '/vendor/wordpress/abilities-api/abilities-api.php';
}

and

require_once __DIR__ . '/../vendor/wordpress/abilities-api/abilities-api.php';

---

You also mentioned a possible change, I think that it would be a safety net.

defined( 'WP_ABILITIES_API_DIR' ) || define( 'WP_ABILITIES_API_DIR, plugin_dir_path( __FILE__) );

---

To make it clear, I managed to fix the issue I encountered by the bootstrapping the Abilities API properly. And it definitely up to you whether to apply the change you've suggested (imo, it would be a nice change).