Spin Skeleton

A lightweight, modern PHP 8+ web framework skeleton for building REST APIs and web applications.

Features

✓ Lightweight & Fast — Minimal overhead, optimized for performance ✓ PHP 8+ — Modern PHP with strict typing and attributes ✓ REST APIs — JSON routing and controllers with built-in helpers ✓ PSR Compliant — PSR-3, PSR-7, PSR-11, PSR-16, PSR-17 standards ✓ Flexible Configuration — JSON config with environment variable expansion ✓ Database Support — MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Firebird, CockroachDB ✓ Middleware Pipeline — Global, group, and route-level middleware ✓ Caching — APCu, Redis, and file-based cache adapters ✓ Logging — Monolog integration with configurable drivers ✓ Tested — PHPUnit test suite included

Getting Started (5 Minutes)

1. Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/Celarius/spin-skeleton.git myapp
cd myapp

2. Install Dependencies

composer install

3. Create .env File

cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your settings

4. Run Development Server

php -S localhost:8000 -t src/public

5. Test the API

curl http://localhost:8000/api/health

Expected response:

{
  "status": "OK",
  "code": "spin",
  "name": "Spin Skeleton",
  "version": "0.0.1"
}

✓ Done! Your app is running. Read the documentation to build your first controller.

Documentation

Topic	File
5-minute setup guide	Getting Started
Configuration and environment variables	Configuration
Database setup and queries (MySQL, SQLite, PostgreSQL)	Database Connections
Creating controllers and middleware	Controllers & Middleware
Writing tests with PHPUnit	Testing

Project Structure

spin-skeleton/
├── src/
│   ├── app/
│   │   ├── Config/              # Configuration files (JSON)
│   │   │   ├── config-dev.json
│   │   │   ├── config-unittest.json
│   │   │   └── routes-dev.json
│   │   ├── Controllers/         # API and web controllers
│   │   │   ├── Api/
│   │   │   │   ├── HealthController.php
│   │   │   │   ├── StatusController.php
│   │   │   │   └── InfoController.php
│   │   │   ├── DefaultController.php
│   │   │   └── ExampleController.php
│   │   ├── Middlewares/         # Request/response middleware
│   │   ├── Views/               # Templates and pages
│   │   │   ├── Pages/
│   │   │   ├── Errors/
│   │   │   └── Components/
│   │   ├── Models/              # (Future) Data models
│   │   ├── Classes/             # Application classes
│   │   └── Globals.php          # Global helpers registration
│   └── public/
│       ├── bootstrap.php        # Application entry point
│       ├── index.php
│       └── .htaccess            # Apache routing
├── tests/                       # PHPUnit test suite
│   ├── Controllers/
│   ├── Middlewares/
│   ├── ApplicationTest.php
│   ├── bootstrap.php
│   └── phpunit.xml
├── doc/                         # Documentation guides
│   ├── getting-started.md
│   ├── configuration.md
│   ├── database-connections.md
│   ├── controllers-and-middleware.md
│   └── testing.md
├── vendor/                      # Composer dependencies
├── .env                         # Environment variables (create)
├── .gitignore
├── composer.json
├── composer.lock
└── phpunit.xml

Common Tasks

Create a REST API Endpoint

1. Create a controller in src/app/Controllers/Api/
2. Extend Spin\Core\Controller
3. Implement handleGET(), handlePOST(), etc.
4. Register in src/app/Config/routes-dev.json

Full guide →

Connect to Database

1. Configure connection in config-dev.json
2. Set .env variables for credentials
3. Use app()->getConnection() in controllers

Supports: MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Firebird, CockroachDB

Full guide →

Write Tests

1. Create test file in tests/
2. Extend PHPUnit\Framework\TestCase
3. Use composer test to run

Full guide →

Configure Application

1. Edit src/app/Config/config-dev.json
2. Use environment variables with ${env:VAR}
3. Access with config('key.path') helper

Full guide →

Add Middleware

1. Create class extending Spin\Core\Middleware
2. Implement initialize() and handle() methods
3. Register in config or routes

Full guide →

Deployment

Apache VirtualHost

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName myapp.local
  DocumentRoot /var/www/myapp/src/public

  <Directory /var/www/myapp/src/public>
    Options -Indexes +FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted

    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteRule ^ bootstrap.php [QSA,L]
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Docker

FROM php:8.2-cli
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y git unzip
RUN curl https://getcomposer.org/composer.phar -o /usr/local/bin/composer && chmod +x /usr/local/bin/composer
WORKDIR /app
COPY . .
RUN composer install --optimize-autoloader --no-dev
EXPOSE 8000
CMD ["php", "-S", "0.0.0.0:8000", "-t", "src/public"]

Build and run:

docker build -t spin-skeleton .
docker run -p 8000:8000 spin-skeleton

Dependencies

• PHP 8.0+
• celarius/spin-framework — Core framework
• league/plates — Template engine
• phpunit/phpunit — Testing framework (dev)

See composer.json for all dependencies.

Testing

Run the test suite:

composer test

With coverage report:

./vendor/bin/phpunit --coverage-html coverage/

License

MIT License — see LICENSE for details

Author

Kim Sandell (sandell@celarius.com)

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Resources:

• Spin Framework
• Documentation
• Getting Started in 5 Minutes