Module broken if never run or no composer installs

Problem/Motivation

I installed this module to kick the tires today. I'm using a fresh install 8.8.x HEAD. Cloned from d.o. And git cloned this project as well. After installing the module, visiting admin/reports/modules-updates resulted in a WSOD. Digging into logs, it looks there are a couple assumptions that aren't necessarily true.

Proposed resolution

Fix the bugs.

Remaining tasks

User interface changes

API changes

Data model changes

Release notes snippet