phel-lang/phel-lang

Phel is a functional programming language that compiles to PHP

v0.38.0 2026-05-16 18:05 UTC

Requires

• php: >=8.4
• amphp/amp: ^3.1
• gacela-project/gacela: ^1.14
• symfony/console: ^6.0|^7.0|^8.0
• symfony/routing: ^7.3

Requires (Dev)

• ext-readline: *
• ergebnis/composer-normalize: ^2.50
• friendsofphp/php-cs-fixer: ^3.94
• phpbench/phpbench: ^1.6
• phpstan/phpstan: ^2.1
• phpunit/phpunit: ^10.5
• psalm/plugin-phpunit: ^0.19
• rector/rector: ^2.3
• symfony/var-dumper: ^7.4
• vimeo/psalm: ^6.16

MIT

• Jens Haase
• Jose M. Valera Reales

• language
• functional
• lisp
• phel

README

Lisp for PHP — macros, persistent data structures, REPL.

Example

(ns my.example)

(defn greet [name] 
  (str "Hello, " name "!"))

(println (greet "Phel"))
;; => Hello, Phel!

More examples →

Data pipeline (def users [{:name "Ada" :age 36} {:name "Bob" :age 17} {:name "Cam" :age 41}]) (->> users (filter #(>= (:age %) 18)) (map :name) sort) ;; => ["Ada" "Cam"]	HTTP response (ns app (:require phel.http :as h)) (def req (h/request-from-globals)) (h/emit-response (h/response-from-map {:status 200 :headers {"Content-Type" "text/plain"} :body (str "Hello " (:uri req))}))
Macros (defmacro unless [pred & body] `(if (not ~pred) (do ~@body))) (unless (zero? 1) (println "not zero")) ;; => not zero (unless false (println "ok")) ;; => ok	PHP interop (ns app) (def now (php/new \DateTime)) (.format now "Y-m-d") ;; => "2026-04-20" (def epoch (php/new \DateTime "1970-01-01")) (.-days (.diff now epoch)) ;; => 20564

Getting Started

composer require phel-lang/phel-lang
./vendor/bin/phel init                     # add `--minimal` for a single-file layout

Scaffolds phel-config.php, src/phel/main.phel, tests/phel/main_test.phel.

./vendor/bin/phel run src/phel/main.phel   # run
./vendor/bin/phel test                     # tests
./vendor/bin/phel repl                     # REPL
./vendor/bin/phel build                    # compile to PHP

Eval inline or via stdin:

./vendor/bin/phel eval '(+ 1 2)'           # prints 3
echo '(println "hi")' | ./vendor/bin/phel eval -
./vendor/bin/phel eval - < script.phel

Documentation

• Quick Start: install, REPL, first script (5 min)
• Documentation Index: every guide, grouped by purpose
• phel-lang.org: tutorials, exercises, blog
• Packagist
• CONTRIBUTING.md: setup and workflow
• AGENTS.md: architecture and review expectations

AI Coding Agents

Skill files for Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Gemini, Copilot, Aider: resources/agents/

./vendor/bin/phel agent-install [platform] [--all]   # install skill file for your agent