How to Override Symfony's default Directory Structure

Override the cache Directory

You can change the default cache directory by overriding the getCacheDir() method in the AppKernel class of your application:

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// app/AppKernel.php

// ...
class AppKernel extends Kernel
{
    // ...

    public function getCacheDir()
    {
        return dirname(__DIR__).'/var/'.$this->environment.'/cache';
    }
}

In this code, $this->environment is the current environment (i.e. dev). In this case you have changed the location of the cache directory to var/{environment}/cache.

Override the logs Directory

Overriding the logs directory is the same as overriding the cache directory. The only difference is that you need to override the getLogDir() method:

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// app/AppKernel.php

// ...
class AppKernel extends Kernel
{
    // ...

    public function getLogDir()
    {
        return dirname(__DIR__).'/var/'.$this->environment.'/logs';
    }
}

Here you have changed the location of the directory to var/{environment}/logs.

Override the Templates Directory

If your templates are not stored in the default app/Resources/views/ directory, use the twig.default_path configuration option to define your own templates directory (use twig.paths for multiple directories):

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# app/config/config.yml
twig:
    # ...
    default_path: "%kernel.project_dir%/templates"

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<!-- app/config/config.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:twig="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/twig"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services
        https://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/twig
        https://symfony.com/schema/dic/twig/twig-1.0.xsd">

    <twig:config>
        <twig:default-path>%kernel.project_dir%/templates</twig:default-path>
    </twig:config>

</container>

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// app/config/config.php
$container->loadFromExtension('twig', [
    'default_path' => '%kernel.project_dir%/templates',
]);

Override the web Directory

If you need to rename or move your web directory, the only thing you need to guarantee is that the path to the var directory is still correct in your app.php and app_dev.php front controllers. If you renamed the directory, you're fine. But if you moved it in some way, you may need to modify these paths inside those files:

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require_once __DIR__.'/../path/to/app/autoload.php';

You also need to change the extra.symfony-web-dir option in the composer.json file:

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{
    "...": "...",
    "extra": {
        "...": "...",
        "symfony-web-dir": "my_new_web_dir"
    }
}

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# app/config/config.yml

# ...
assetic:
    # ...
    read_from: '%kernel.project_dir%/../public_html'

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<!-- app/config/config.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
    xmlns:assetic="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/assetic"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services
        https://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd
        http://symfony.com/schema/dic/assetic
        https://symfony.com/schema/dic/assetic/assetic-1.0.xsd">

    <!-- ... -->
    <assetic:config read-from="%kernel.project_dir%/../public_html"/>

</container>

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// app/config/config.php

// ...
$container->loadFromExtension('assetic', [
    // ...
    'read_from' => '%kernel.project_dir%/../public_html',
]);

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$ php bin/console cache:clear --env=prod
$ php bin/console assetic:dump --env=prod --no-debug

Override the vendor Directory

To override the vendor directory, you need to introduce changes in the app/autoload.php and composer.json files.

The change in the composer.json will look like this:

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{
    "config": {
        "bin-dir": "bin",
        "vendor-dir": "/some/dir/vendor"
    },
}

Then, update the path to the autoload.php file in app/autoload.php:

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// app/autoload.php

// ...
$loader = require '/some/dir/vendor/autoload.php';