PHP Coding Practices

PHP Coding Practices

Application skill for PHP style learning (from the archived awesome-guidelines style capsules). For Laravel/Symfony/WordPress stack patterns, load stack capsules under skills/*-foundation.

Core Principle

PHP readability is PSR mechanical layout plus strict typed APIs, side-effect-free autoload files, identical comparison, injected dependencies.

When to Use / NOT

• PHP application/library source, Composer packages, PHPCS/Pint/PHP-CS-Fixer CI.
• Reviewing namespaces, types, comparison, class design.

NOT when:

• Non-PHP code.
• Generated stubs (PHPUnit mocks, protobuf), validate generator config instead.
• CMS-specific rules (WordPress/Drupal), use stack capsules under skills/*-foundation.

Workflow

1. Format & layout, PSR-12 indent, braces, imports, LF endings (php-style-formatting-layout.md).
2. Files & namespaces, PSR-4 side-effect-free files, PascalCase/camelCase (php-style-files-namespaces.md).
3. Types, strict_types, hints, ===, ?? (php-style-types-comparisons.md).
4. Classes, visibility, final, DI, early return (php-style-classes-design.md).
5. Verify, PHP-CS-Fixer, Laravel Pint, or PHPCS (PSR-12) + PHPStan/Psalm on changed paths.

Red Flags

• Closing ?> in pure PHP class files
• ini_set / echo in PSR-4 autoloaded class file
• Loose == without documented intent
• $name = null + ?: default instead of typed default
• Singleton::getInstance() for domain services
• Public mutable properties on domain objects
• Magic numbers in conditionals

Verification

• php-cs-fixer fix --dry-run / ./vendor/bin/pint --test / PHPCS PSR-12 on changed files
• PHPStan/Psalm at project level on touched namespaces
• Capsule checklist on public API review

References

• awesome-guidelines/references/php-style-learning-note.md
• awesome-guidelines/references/php-style-formatting-layout.md
• awesome-guidelines/references/php-style-files-namespaces.md
• awesome-guidelines/references/php-style-types-comparisons.md
• awesome-guidelines/references/php-style-classes-design.md