Vortex Startup App

Minimal startup-ready PHP app on vortexphp/framework.

The vortex file in the project root is the CLI entry point (also registered in Composer bin). Run it with php vortex <command> (for example php vortex serve).

Requirements

• PHP 8.2+
• Composer
• Node.js + npm (for Tailwind CSS build)
• GNU Make (optional; use the composer run … equivalents below if you prefer)
• Docker (optional; see Docker)

Monorepo development

composer.json includes path repositories so a full Vortex checkout can symlink vendor/vortexphp/framework and vendor/vortexphp/live to sibling packages while you work on the framework. That is optional: vendor/ is gitignored, and installs from Packagist use normal package copies when those path entries are absent or unused. If you see symlinks under vendor/vortexphp/, you are using the local path repositories.

Quick start (clone)

make setup          # composer install + npm install; copies .env.example → .env if .env is missing
# edit .env: set APP_KEY and APP_URL (see .env.example comments)
make build
make serve          # or: php vortex serve

Same without Make:

composer run setup
cp .env.example .env   # if you skipped `make setup`
composer run build
php vortex serve

Create Project

composer create-project vortexphp/vortex my-app
cd my-app
composer run setup
cp .env.example .env

Install (existing clone)

composer install
npm install
cp .env.example .env

Generate APP_KEY and put it in .env:

php -r "echo 'base64:'.base64_encode(random_bytes(32)), PHP_EOL;"

Set at least:

• APP_KEY
• APP_URL (for local: http://localhost:8000)

Run Locally

Build front-end assets (Tailwind → public/css/app.css, then copy Live → public/js/live.js):

make build
# or: composer run build

npm run build only compiles CSS; composer run build / make build also runs php vortex publish:assets, which copies package assets (for example vortexphp/live → public/js/live.js).

Watch CSS during development:

make dev
# or: npm run dev / composer run dev

Run the app:

php vortex serve
# or: make serve

Open:

• http://localhost:8000/
• http://localhost:8000/health

Useful Commands

make test              # or: composer run test
composer run doctor
composer run smoke
composer run db-check

Assets

Output	Source	How it is produced
public/css/app.css	ui/css/app.css	Tailwind: npm run build / npm run dev
public/js/live.js	vendor/vortexphp/live/resources/live.js	php vortex publish:assets (from LivePackage::publicAssets()); part of composer run build; also Composer post-install / post-update

Templates reference /css/app.css and /js/live.js only. There is no separate public/dist/ pipeline in this app; that path is gitignored to avoid duplicate stale files.

Database seeders

database/seeders/DatabaseSeeder.php (Database\Seeders\DatabaseSeeder) is the entry point for seed data. Wire it into your own commands or tooling as the project grows.

Exceptions

• App\Exceptions\AppException — base class for domain-level errors.
• App\Exceptions\Handler — implement handle() to return a custom Response for specific throwables; return null to use the framework ErrorRenderer (wired from public/index.php).

Docker

Requires vendor/ (run composer install on the host first). Then:

docker compose up

Serves on http://127.0.0.1:8080/ (PHP built-in server, 0.0.0.0:8080 inside the container).

Production Install

composer run install:prod
composer run build

(composer run build runs npm run build and then syncs Live assets; Node is required for the Tailwind step.)