I’m trying to upgrade my phone from stable /e/ to the dev branch, however I can’t do that because my phone uses an outdated vendor. I searched throught many topics and all of them were either convoluted or inconclusive. Can I flash a newer Android 10 compatible vendor onto my phone to bypass installing stock firmware and upgrading from there? Where do I get this vendor? What are the risks of bricking my device? If I mess up something, can I just use the Easy Installer as a way to “unbrick” my phone as I’ve always done?
Not sure if @SuzieQ is still here to clarify further. I had to flash stock Q to get my S9+ to the /e/Q dev from /e/Oreo.
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Ok, but will I be able to do this without compatible vendor? Will the vendor be installed with the os?
A successful install of latest Samsung firmware will put the device just where it needs to be (clue, vendor=Samsung 
). You may find relevant links here.
The thing that catches us out is that Samsung/Android change the vendor partition with Android version upgrades, partly to enforce rollback protection.
vendor image is a part of the “AP folder” witch is a part of the Official Samsung Firmware.
before installing the stable /e/oreo, is your device was running Android 10 OR Android 8 ?
if you have Android 10 previously installed, and downgraded by the easy intaller or manually by flashing the custom vendor image provided by /e/ to make compatibility,
you can install Android 10 vendor image and /e/Q
but if you have Android 8 previously installed, you 'd better install the entire Samsung Android 10, TWRP and may have to format /data before installing /e/Q