It might reduce the amount of conflicts yes you're right in that. BUT the problem is we do want this to conflict if two different things affecting package resolutions changed, even if seemingly unrelated. Because if you change in different PRs two requirements of two packages that both end up requiring a third package C, maybe you could then merge the lock files just fine, but you might end up with a version of C that actually does not satisfy the requirements anymore, or things like this. So IMO the best is to replay composer updates whenever you get a conflict, to ensure you get a lock file that is correct.