Directories marked as test source root getting unmarked

Hi there,

Are they marked as such in composer.json?

Right now it sounds like IDE is syncing these settings (PHP Language Level + Source/Test roots) with composer.json (which happens on project opening) which overrides manually configured ones.

Either disable such syncing .. or define them in composer.json.

Hi Andriy,

I added the autoload-dev in my composer and it did marked the proper directories.

Thanks for your help!

I have the same problem. Directories don't persist the settings. I constantly need to unmark them as test directories, because I don't have tests in one directory only, but organized in modules. It's annoying, wastes my time and searching doesn't work properly because of it.

Hello Jorg Sowa,

Please try PhpStorm 2025.1 EAP build. It should work there.

@Anastasiia Zyrianova This is still happening to me in 2025.2.5. We have tests in a `./tests` directory as well as several modules in `./modules/{ModuleName}/test`, yet PHPStorm keeps marking the entire `./modules/` folder as tests root. What logic does PHPStorm use to do this?

Below is my  php storm info:
PhpStorm 2025.2.5

Build #PS-252.28238.9, built on November 19, 2025

Source revision: 7059016f3609e

Licensed to Kroll Bond Rating Agency / Trenton Craig

Subscription is active until May 2, 2026.

Runtime version: 21.0.9+10-b1038.76 aarch64 (JCEF 122.1.9)

VM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM by JetBrains s.r.o.

Toolkit: sun.lwawt.macosx.LWCToolkit

macOS 15.6.1

GC: G1 Young Generation, G1 Concurrent GC, G1 Old Generation

Memory: 4096M

Cores: 10

Metal Rendering is ON

Registry:

 ide.balloon.shadow.size=0

 debugger.watches.in.variables=false

 debugger.new.tool.window.layout=true

 run.processes.with.pty=TRUE

 ide.experimental.ui=true

Non-Bundled Plugins:

 org.jetbrains.plugins.yaml (252.28238.33)

 JavaScriptDebugger (252.28238.33)

 org.editorconfig.editorconfigjetbrains (252.28238.22)

 org.jetbrains.intellij.scripting-javascript (1.3)

 org.intellij.plugins.hcl (252.26199.7)

 aws.toolkit.core (3.99.252)

 Subversion (252.28238.33)

 com.intellij.copyright (252.28238.33)

 org.jetbrains.plugins.go-template (252.23892.201)

 com.intellij.kubernetes (252.28238.33)

 String Manipulation (9.16.0)

 dev.meanmail.plugin.nginx-intellij-plugin (2025.21)

 hunspell (252.28238.33)

 com.intellij.swagger (252.28238.33)

 com.jetbrains.restClient (252.28238.33)

 Docker (252.28238.33)

 org.jetbrains.plugins.gitlab (252.28238.33-IU)

 org.jetbrains.plugins.github (252.28238.33-IU)

 com.intellij.react (252.28238.29)

 org.jetbrains.plugins.vue (252.28238.32)

 com.jetbrains.php.drupal (252.28238.9)

 com.jetbrains.twig (252.28238.10)

 com.jetbrains.php.wordPress (252.28238.9)

 de.espend.idea.php.annotation (12.0.1)

 com.jetbrains.php.rector (252.23892.360)

 com.jetbrains.php.blade (252.28238.9)

 com.pestphp.pest-intellij (252.28238.9)

 com.github.copilot (1.5.61-243)

 com.datadog.intellij (1.10.4)

 com.intellij.mcpServer (252.28238.29)

 mobi.hsz.idea.gitignore (4.5.6)

 com.intellij.php.psalm (252.28238.9)

 com.jetbrains.php.phpspec (252.28238.9)

 com.jetbrains.php.codeception (252.28238.9)

 com.intellij.php.tools.quality.phpstan (252.28238.9)

 org.jetbrains.security.package-checker (252.28238.22)

 aws.toolkit (3.99.252)

Below is the relevant sample of my composer.json file

"autoload": {
    "psr-4": {
      "MyCompany\\Kcp\\": "src/",
      "MyCompany\\ApiConsumer\\": "module/MyCompany/ApiConsumer/src/",
      "MyCompany\\Cache\\": "module/MyCompany/Cache/src/",
      "MyCompany\\Logger\\": "module/MyCompany/Logger/src/",
      "MyCompany\\MailService\\": "module/MyCompany/MailService/src/",
      "MyCompany\\Queue\\": "module/MyCompany/Queue/src/",
      "MyCompany\\Search\\": "module/MyCompany/Search/src/",
      "MyCompany\\Secret\\": "module/MyCompany/Secret/src/",
      "MyCompany\\SawDigest\\": "module/MyCompany/SawDigest/src/",
      "MyCompany\\SwarmClient\\": "module/MyCompany/SwarmClient/src/",
      "MyCompany\\Theme\\": "module/MyCompany/Theme/src/",
      "MyCompany\\Utility\\": "module/MyCompany/Utility/src/",
      "Admin\\": "module/Admin/src/",
      "Application\\": "module/Application/src/",
      "DataFeed\\": "module/DataFeed/src/",
      "Console\\": "module/Console/src/Console/",
      "Portal\\": "module/Portal/src/",
      "Search\\": "module/Search/src/",
      "WidgetEngine\\": "module/WidgetEngine/src/"
    }
  },
  "autoload-dev": {
    "AdminTest\\": "module/Admin/test/",
    "ApplicationTest\\": "module/Application/test/ApplicationTest/",
    "DataFeedTest\\": "module/DataFeed/test/",
    "MyCompany\\KcpTest\\": "tests/Unit/",
    "MyCompany\\KcpTest\\Integration\\": "tests/Integration/",
    "MyCompany\\SecretTest\\": "module/MyCompany/Secret/test/",
    "PortalTest\\": "module/Portal/test/",
    "SearchTest\\": "module/Search/test/",
    "WidgetEngineTest\\": "module/WidgetEngine/test/"
  },

I just reviewed WI-78142 and took a look at my phpunit.xml file. I saw that we had `./module/` as one of the test directories. I modified this to reference specific module test folders instead and now the problem has gone away.

I think we need to update the PHPStorm documentation on https://www.jetbrains.com/help/phpstorm/content-root.html to mention phpunit.xml is also considered by phpstorm when automatically updating directory markings.

Hi Trenton Craig,

Thank you for sharing your experience and commenting on WI-78142. As soon as this issue is addressed, there will be no need to adjust the documentation.