Make Capistrano use alias on sever when running scripts - php

Question

I have the following problem using Capistrano with laravel:
My hosting provider does not provide a cli php version via php but only via a usr/bin/local/.../PHP-CLI command
I did create an alias for it in my .bash_profile so running composer install from the cli is no problem.
However, Capistrano (as far as I understand due to it starting in a very basic shell http://capistranorb.com/documentation/faq/why-does-something-work-in-my-ssh-session-but-not-in-capistrano/) does not load this alias, so I get an error from the composer scripts e.g. php artisan.
However, on my dev machine I need to keep it as php, since this is where php is here.
How can I solve this problem best? Any more info you need? Thanks.
Just in case it helps, this is how I call the script:
desc 'Composer install'
task :composer_install do
on roles(:app), in: :groups, limit:1 do
execute "/usr/local/bin/php5-56STABLE-CLI composer.phar install --working-dir #{fetch(:release_path)}"
execute "cp #{fetch(:deploy_to)}/shared/.env #{fetch(:release_path)}/.env"
end
end

Answer 1

It sounds like your scenario is the perfect fit for Capistrano's "command map" feature, as documented here: https://github.com/capistrano/sshkit#the-command-map.
Here are the two main takeaways:
Write your Capistrano execute commands so that the binary name (php) is a separate argument. This will allow it to be substituted using the command map. For example:
execute :php, "composer.phar install --working-dir #{fetch(:release_path)}"
In your Capistrano deployment config, tell the command map how to substitute the :php command, like this:
SSHKit.config.command_map[:php] = "/usr/local/bin/php5-56STABLE-CLI"
If you want this substitution to affect all deployment environments, place it in deploy.rb. If it only applies to your production environment, then put it in production.rb.

Answer 2

Okay, my current workaround is the following:
in your capistrano deploy.rb in the script that you execute at deploy update.
desc 'Composer install'
task :composer_install do
on roles(:app), in: :groups, limit:1 do
execute "/usr/local/bin/php5-56STABLE-CLI /path/to/composer.phar install --working-dir #{fetch(:release_path)} --no-scripts"
execute "cd #{fetch(:release_path)} && /usr/local/bin/php5-56STABLE-CLI artisan clear-compiled"
execute "cd #{fetch(:release_path)} && /usr/local/bin/php5-56STABLE-CLI artisan optimize"
end
end
end
after "deploy:updated", "deploy:composer_install"
I am not 100% sure if the artisan clear-compiled is needed. Anyway, those 2 are composer scripts that would normally be called via composer, but the --no-scripts flag keeps them from being called, so that it does not fail on install. When calling them from capistrano, I can easily change which php to use, as you can see.
However if anyone has a better solution, please let me know.