laikait / laika-framework

v5.0.0 2026-09-20 10:26 UTC

Requires

• php: >=8.1
• laikait/laika-engine: 2.1.*

MIT

• Laika IT
• Showket Ahmed

Published on Packagist.org on 2026-09-20 10:31 UTC

README

A secure, fast, and flexible Moduler First MVC framework for PHP 8.1+, built with simplicity in mind. Laika gives you routing, models, templating, a service container, and a CLI generator — without the overhead of large frameworks like Laravel or Symfony.

✨ Features

• 🚀 Lightweight core — no bloat, no magic you can't trace back to a file
• 🛠️ Expressive router — route groups, named routes, regex-constrained and UTF-8 parameters, pipelines & filters
• 💉 Dependency injection — controllers, pipelines and filters are auto-wired from the service container
• 🗂️ PDO models & schema builder — MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, SQL Server, Oracle, Firebird, plus backups and a SQL converter
• 🧩 Service container — Relay classes give every service a clean static API
• 🔐 Security by default — only whitelisted static files served, CSRF tokens injected into forms, CORS and security headers, encryption helpers, optional firewall (rate limiting, SQLi/XSS detection)
• 🔑 Multi-guard auth — session, cookie and database-backed bearer-token guards
• 🗃️ Sessions & queues — pluggable backends (file/database/Redis/Memcached sessions; JSON/database/Redis queues)
• ✉️ Mail — SMTP/sendmail sending and IMAP/POP3 reading
• ⚙️ Built-in CLI (php laika) — scaffold controllers, models, pipelines, filters, jobs, commands, templates, and more
• 📦 Composer-native — PSR-4 autoloading, each subsystem is its own versioned package

📦 Installation

composer create-project laikait/laika-framework myproject
cd myproject
php laika app:start

Visit http://127.0.0.1:8000 — you should see the default Laika landing page.

See docs/01_getting-started/01_installation.md for requirements and manual setup.

📚 Documentation

Full documentation lives in docs/:

Section	What's covered
Getting Started	Installation, project structure, configuration, CLI, request lifecycle, upgrading
Routing & HTTP	Routes, controllers, requests & validation, responses
Pipelines	Pre-controller middleware
Filters	Post-controller middleware
Models & Database	Models, query builder, schemas, migrations, backups
Templates	Twig views, assets, meta tags, navigation
Services & Relays	The service container and the relay list
Hooks	Hook files and the hook system
Authentication	Session, cookie and token guards
Security	Firewall, CSRF & CORS, encryption & tokens
Sessions	Session backends and API
Queue	Background jobs and workers
Deployment	Apache/nginx/PHP-FPM, production checklist
Resources	Class discovery and custom resource types
Helpers	Global helper functions
Files & Storage	Uploads, images, local and S3 storage
Mail	Sending and reading email
Errors & Logging	Error handling, logs, activity log, options
Utilities	Dates, math, cron, shell commands

The docs index also has a "common tasks" table — the fastest way to find how to do something.

🧩 The Laika Ecosystem

laikait/laika-framework is the application skeleton; the actual functionality ships in one Composer package, laikait/laika-engine, installed at vendor/laikait/laika-engine:

Module	Namespace	Provides
Core	Laika\Engine\* (App, Http, Helper, Support, …)	Bootstrap, request/response, validation, templates, helpers, storage, security, errors
Route	Laika\Engine\Route	Router, dispatcher, pipelines and filters
Model	Laika\Engine\Model	PDO query builder, schema builder, backup, SQL converter
Relay	Laika\Engine\Relay, Laika\Engine\Services	Service container, relay base class and the core service relays
Session	Laika\Engine\Session	File, database, Redis and Memcached session handlers
Auth	Laika\Engine\Auth	Session, cookie and token guards
Shield	Laika\Engine\Shield	Firewall pipeline (rate limiting, IP/country blocking, SQLi/XSS detection)
Queue	Laika\Engine\Queue	Background job queue and worker
Cache	Laika\Engine\Cache	Cache drivers: file, array, Redis, Memcached
Mailman	Laika\Engine\Mailman	Mail sending (PHPMailer) and IMAP/POP3 reading
Cli	Laika\Engine\Cli	The laika command-line tool

The docs here explain how the modules fit together inside an application; the engine's docs/<module>/ folders go deeper into their internals.

⌨️ CLI Quick Reference

php laika controller:make UserController
php laika model:make UsersModel --table=users
php laika pipeline:make Auth
php laika filter:make Log
php laika job:make SendWelcomeEmail
php laika template:make dashboard --path=admin

php laika route:list
php laika app:migrate
php laika app:start
php laika help

Full command reference: docs/01_getting-started/04_cli.md.

🤝 Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome on the relevant package repository. For framework-wide changes, open an issue on laikait/laika-framework.

📄 License

MIT — see LICENSE.