Zero Framework

Zero Framework is a native-PHP micro-framework that mirrors the developer ergonomics of Laravel while avoiding external runtime dependencies. It keeps the stack lean, embraces expressive APIs for routing, HTTP handling, templating, and data access, and ships with a tiny CLI to cover the common workflows you expect from a modern framework.

Table of Contents

• Highlights
• Requirements
• Installation
• Quick Start
• Project Layout
• Core Concepts
  • Routing
  • Request & Response Lifecycle
  • Views & Layouts
  • Database & DBML
  • Models
  • Authentication
  • Helpers & Facades
  • Support Utilities
• CLI Reference
• Configuration
• Deployment
• Documentation
• Roadmap
• Inspiration
• Contributing
• License

Highlights

• Laravel-inspired developer experience with native PHP under the hood.
• Productive router with groups, middleware pipelines, and auto dependency injection.
• First-class HTTP abstractions: rich request helpers and flexible response factories.
• Blade-style view engine with layouts, sections, directives, and optional caching.
• Fluent DBML (Database Management Layer) query builder, active-record models, migrations, and seeders driven by a concise DBAL.
• Battery-included CLI (zero) for serving, scaffolding, and database management.
• SMTP mailer with fluent message composition and secure TLS defaults.
• Centralised error handler with configurable HTML/JSON output and configurable log channels (file or database).
• Simple .env loader with support for multiple environments and interpolation.

Requirements

• PHP 8.1 or newer with the pdo extension (SQLite, MySQL, or PostgreSQL driver).
• Optional: pcntl extension for the --watch development server flag.
• Write access to the storage/ directory for cache, logs, and compiled views.
• Composer is not required—the framework ships with its own autoloader.

Installation

Get started with Zero Framework using this one-liner (replace my-project with your desired project name):

Mac and Linux

curl -L -o main.zip https://zerophp.com/get/latest.zip \
&& unzip -q main.zip \
&& rm main.zip \
&& mv Zero-main my-project \
&& cd my-project \
&& rm -rf docs todo.md readme.md .git \
&& cp .env.example .env \
&& php zero key:generate

Windows

Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://zerophp.com/get/latest.zip" -OutFile "main.zip"; 
Expand-Archive -Path "main.zip" -DestinationPath "." -Force; 
Remove-Item "main.zip"; 
Rename-Item "Zero-main" "my-project"; 
Set-Location "my-project"; 
Remove-Item -Recurse -Force docs, todo.md, readme.md; 
Copy-Item ".env.example" ".env" 
php zero key:generate

Quick Start

1. The installation script will create a new project and generate an application key.
2. Copy .env.example to .env and adjust host/port or database credentials as needed.
3. Ensure the storage/ directory is writable (chmod -R 775 storage).
4. Serve the application:

   php zero serve --host=127.0.0.1 --port=8000 --root=public

   Add --watch to restart automatically on file changes, or try --franken / --swolee for experimental backends.
5. Visit the configured host/port to see the starter page.

Run migrations or seeders whenever you update the database schema:

php zero migrate
php zero db:seed Database\\Seeders\\DatabaseSeeder

Project Layout

app/                # Controllers, middlewares, and models for your application
config/             # Framework configuration (database, storage, view, etc.)
core/               # Framework libraries, bootstrap files, and infrastructure
database/           # Migrations and seeders
docs/               # In-depth documentation for each subsystem
public/             # HTTP entry point (`index.php`) and public assets
resources/          # View templates, layouts, and components
routes/             # Route definitions (`web.php`)
storage/            # Cache, compiled views, and runtime state
zero                # CLI entry point for serving and scaffolding

Core Concepts

Routing

• Define HTTP verbs and controller actions in routes/web.php using Zero\Lib\Router helpers (get, post, put, etc.).
• Group routes with shared prefixes or middleware; nested groups compose cleanly.
• Path parameters are type-hinted and injected automatically, along with the shared Request instance.
• Middleware can short-circuit by returning a response, ideal for guard logic.

Request & Response Lifecycle

• Zero\Lib\Http\Request::capture() snapshots query, form, JSON, file, and header data, exposing helpers like input, json, header, ip, and expectsJson.
• Middleware can cache work for later using request attributes: Request::set('key', $value) in middleware and Request::get('key') (or Request::instance()->key) in controllers.
• Controllers may return strings, arrays, models, iterables, or explicit Response objects; the router normalises everything through Zero\Lib\Response::resolve().
• Response factories cover HTML, JSON, text, redirects, streams, and opinionated API envelopes.

Views & Layouts

• Zero\Lib\View::render('pages/home', $data) compiles Blade-inspired templates with layout, section, include, and directive support.
• Zero\Lib\View::renderString($template, $data) renders a Blade-style template string when you already have the markup in memory.
• Toggle view caching via config/view.php or View::configure(). Compiled templates live under storage/cache/views.
• Global view() and response() helpers simplify controller return values.

Database & DBML

• Zero\Lib\DB\DBML (the Database Management Layer) provides fluent query building with selections, joins, aggregates, pagination, and safe bindings.
• Run migrations with php zero migrate; create new migrations via php zero make:migration create_posts_table and describe schema using the migration DBAL (Zero\Lib\DB\Schema).
• Seeders extend Zero\Lib\DB\Seeder and execute with php zero db:seed.

Models

• Extend Zero\Lib\Model for active-record style classes with fillable attributes, timestamps, and lazy relationships (hasOne, hasMany, belongsTo).
• Chainable query builder methods return hydrated model instances; use paginate() or simplePaginate() for pagination.
• Call toBase() when you need the underlying DBML builder for complex queries.

Authentication

• App\Controllers\Auth\AuthController handles login/logout and refuses access until the account is email verified.
• App\Controllers\Auth\RegisterController, App\Controllers\Auth\EmailVerificationController, and App\Controllers\Auth\PasswordResetController provide Laravel-style registration, verification, and password reset flows out of the box.
• Outbound mail (verification/reset links) is rendered with Blade-style views and delivered through the built-in SMTP mailer.
• Protect routes with App\Middlewares\Auth; unauthenticated requests are redirected to /login with the intended URL stored in the session.
• Access the current user via the Auth facade (Auth::user(), Auth::id()), or extend the controllers to suit domain-specific policies.

Helpers & Facades

• core/kernel.php registers lightweight facades (View, DB, Model, DBML, Auth, Mail) and autoloaded helper files.
• Use the global config() helper for dot-access to config/*.php, and env() for values from .env, .env.staging, or .env.production (later files override earlier ones and support ${VAR} interpolation).

Support Utilities

• Zero\Lib\Http\Http provides a fluent HTTP client for outbound requests (JSON helpers, timeouts, retries, file uploads).
• Zero\Lib\Support\Str bundles familiar string transformations (studly, camel, snake, slug, etc.) for CLI and application code.
• Zero\Lib\Storage\Storage persists files to the configured disks; pair with uploaded files via $file->store().

CLI Reference

Command	Description
php zero serve [--host] [--port] [--root] [--watch] [--franken] [--swolee]	Run the development server (with optional file watching or alternative backends).
php zero make:controller Name [--force]	Generate a controller scaffold under app/controllers.
php zero log:clear [--channel] [--path]	Delete generated *.log files for the chosen log channel or directory.
php zero db:dump [--connection] [--file]	Export the configured database to an SQL dump file.
php zero db:restore [--connection] [--file]	Restore the configured database from an SQL dump file.
php zero make:service Name [--force]	Generate a service class in app/services.
php zero make:model Name [--force]	Generate an active-record model in app/models.
php zero make:migration Name [--force]	Create a timestamped migration in database/migrations.
php zero migrate	Apply outstanding migrations.
php zero migrate:rollback [steps]	Roll back the latest migration batches.
php zero migrate:refresh	Roll back every migration batch, then rerun them.
php zero migrate:fresh	Drop all tables and execute migrations from scratch.
php zero make:seeder Name [--force]	Generate a seeder class in database/seeders.
php zero db:seed [FQN]	Run a seeder (defaults to Database\\Seeders\\DatabaseSeeder).
php zero storage:link	Create symbolic links for configured storage disks.

Configuration

• Environment variables are loaded in priority order: .env → .env.staging → .env.production, with ${VAR} interpolation and array syntax [a,b,c] support.
• Database connections live in config/database.php with drivers for MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite. Switch drivers via DB_CONNECTION or driver-specific env vars (MYSQL_HOST, SQLITE_DATABASE, etc.).
• Sessions default to the database driver via config/session.php; adjust lifetime, cookie name, or switch to encrypted cookie storage with SESSION_DRIVER=cookie.
• Authentication tokens default to a one-week TTL; set AUTH_TOKEN_TTL (seconds) in .env or config/auth.php if you need different longevity.
• Logging is defined in config/logging.php. Switch between file and database channels with LOG_DRIVER, and point the database channel at a custom table via LOG_TABLE.
• File storage defaults to the public disk (local); configure S3 via the new s3 disk when needed; adjust config/storage.php or .env (STORAGE_DISK, STORAGE_PUBLIC_ROOT, STORAGE_PRIVATE_ROOT) and persist uploads with Storage::put() / $file->store().
• Updater settings live in config/update.php. Set UPDATE_MANIFEST_URL (and optional UPDATE_TIMEOUT) to enable the update:latest command.
  • Leave UPDATE_MANIFEST_URL blank to pull the latest GitHub release (or branch) using UPDATE_GITHUB_REPO and UPDATE_GITHUB_BRANCH.
• Update config/view.php, config/storage.php, and other config files to match your deployment needs.

Deployment

For a production-ready setup (Nginx + PHP-FPM, environment variables, logging, migrations), see the dedicated deployment guide. It covers server requirements, TLS, cron tasks, and the configurable logging channels.

Documentation

• Framework Overview
• Request & Response Lifecycle
• Routing
• DBML Query Builder
• Model Layer
• View Layer
• Authentication
• Mailer
• CLI Tooling
• Storage

Roadmap

Active ideas and upcoming improvements live in todo.md. Highlights include CSRF protection, richer CLI command dispatching, eager-loading helpers, and a centralised exception handler.

Inspiration

This project draws inspiration from Laravel's elegance while celebrating the simplicity of native PHP—clean, self-sufficient code with a modern developer experience.

Contributing

1. Fork the repository and create a feature branch.
2. Make your changes with clear commits and matching documentation updates.
3. Open a pull request describing the motivation and testing notes.

Bug reports and feature requests are welcome—open an issue or start a discussion.

License

A license file has not been published yet. Add your preferred license at the repository root to clarify usage terms.