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Installer Laravel Package
api-platform/installer
Composer installer for API Platform, the PHP framework for building REST and GraphQL APIs. It streamlines project creation and setup, delivering a ready-to-use application with sensible defaults and minimal configuration for your next API.
api-platform/installer simplifies bootstrapping API Platform applications with a Composer-friendly workflow. It scaffolds a new Symfony-based project, installs required dependencies, and prepares sensible defaults so you can start building REST and GraphQL APIs quickly.
- Composer-powered project creation
- Scaffolds the API Platform application structure
- Installs and wires required dependencies
- Prepares default configuration
- Speeds up prototyping and local development
Frequently asked questions about Installer
- Is api-platform/installer a Laravel package?
- No. API Platform is a Symfony-based framework for hypermedia REST and GraphQL APIs, and this package is a Composer project template that scaffolds a standalone Symfony application. There is no Laravel service provider, facade, or Eloquent bridge, and none is planned. Inside an existing Laravel codebase its fit is effectively zero, so treat any attempt to install it as a Laravel dependency as an anti-pattern.
- How do I install api-platform/installer with Composer?
- It is consumed with composer create-project rather than composer require, because the goal is to generate a new project skeleton rather than add a runtime library to an existing app. The scaffold pulls in API Platform core, Doctrine, Docker Compose, Caddy or FrankenPHP, and Postgres. Confirm the exact Packagist artifact name first, since the repository URL points at the umbrella API Platform repo rather than obviously at the installer. Once generated, the resulting application is your own code to commit and modify.
- Which PHP and Symfony versions does API Platform support?
- API Platform tracks current Symfony and PHP releases, but the supported matrix changes with each major version, so check the constraints in the generated composer.json and the official docs rather than assuming. API Platform majors have historically introduced breaking changes to resource metadata, serialization groups, and filter syntax. Pin your PHP and Symfony versions before scaffolding and verify they match your runtime standard. If your platform baseline is older, budget time for version alignment before writing a single endpoint.
- What do I actually get in the generated API Platform project?
- The scaffold produces a full Symfony application pre-wired for API Platform, including hypermedia REST endpoints with JSON-LD and OpenAPI documentation, plus GraphQL support derived from the same resource metadata. Doctrine ORM entities and migrations, Docker Compose services, Caddy or FrankenPHP as the web server, Postgres, and Mercure for real-time updates are typically included. It gets a team to a documented, running endpoint in hours rather than days. Everything in the scaffold is editable code, not a locked dependency.
- Does upgrading api-platform/installer upgrade my existing API?
- No. Because it is a template rather than a runtime dependency, upstream refinements do not flow into generated projects. Your API Platform version is whatever the generated composer.json pins, and you upgrade api-platform/core yourself when you choose. That also means the Docker, Caddy, and PHP-FPM configuration will drift from both upstream and your platform baseline over time. Given the framework's history of breaking changes, budget for an upgrade cycle roughly annually.
- Can I use API Platform alongside an existing Laravel application?
- Only as a separately deployed service behind your API gateway, sharing the HTTP contract and nothing else. The defensible pattern is a new Symfony service owning a single bounded context, with identity shared through OIDC or JWT so tokens minted on the Laravel side are validated on the Symfony side. Do not attempt shared sessions, a shared database schema, or cross-framework ORM access. Reuse is limited to PHP, Composer, PSR interfaces, and PSR-compliant observability or HTTP client libraries.
- How hard is it to migrate existing Laravel endpoints to API Platform?
- Harder than a lift-and-shift, because routing, validation, ORM, migrations, queue workers, and auth middleware all become parallel implementations in Symfony and Doctrine. Assume near-zero code reuse and plan a rewrite of each endpoint against the same OpenAPI contract so existing clients are unaffected. Keep the boundary at HTTP so the service remains replaceable if you abandon it later. Migrating endpoint by endpoint behind the gateway is usually safer than a big-bang cutover.
- Is API Platform production ready and how do I test it?
- Yes, API Platform is used in production, but the scaffold's infrastructure opinions such as Caddy, FrankenPHP, Postgres, and Mercure are unlikely to match a Laravel, MySQL, and Nginx platform baseline and will need rewriting for your orchestrator. Testing uses PHPUnit with API Platform's own test helpers, and the generated project ships with a test setup you extend for your resources. Add contract tests against the generated OpenAPI document so the API surface stays stable across upgrades. Treat the Docker setup as a starting point, not a deployment artifact.
- Is api-platform/installer actively maintained and what license does it use?
- It is MIT licensed with no copyleft exposure and is published under the API Platform organization in lockstep with the framework. A zero dependents count is normal for a project template and is not a red flag, but it does mean popularity signals are not the same as production adoption. Verify the actual package identity on Packagist, since the linked repository is the umbrella API Platform repo, and sanity-check the most recent release date before committing. Watch api-platform/core activity as the real maintenance indicator.
- What are the alternatives to API Platform for building APIs in PHP?
- If you are staying in Laravel, Eloquent API resources plus your existing router and an OpenAPI generator give you one framework, one ORM, and one upgrade calendar. If you want API Platform's metadata-driven approach without the template's infrastructure opinions, add api-platform/core to an existing Symfony app instead of scaffolding a new one. Lumen is not a sensible choice today. The real decision is whether a second framework in your estate is worth the operational and cognitive overhead.
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