Indentation Laravel Package

Product Decisions This Supports

• Code formatting / snippet rendering features: If we surface code samples in a UI (docs site, snippet library, CMS code blocks, developer portal), this package answers "is this tabs or spaces, and how wide?" so we can render consistently or normalize before highlighting. Directly informs the build-vs-buy call on a homegrown indent parser.
• Config/file ingestion (YAML, indented formats): Detecting an incoming file's indentation convention before parsing or re-emitting it — relevant if we support user-uploaded YAML/config files where indentation is semantically meaningful.
• Template / scaffolding / codegen tools: Converting generated code between tab and space conventions, or honoring a detected base indent when injecting blocks into existing user files (CLI scaffolding, migration generators).
• Diff/patch and review tooling: Normalizing indentation before comparison to reduce whitespace-only noise.
• Roadmap signal: This is a narrow, single-purpose utility — treat it as an implementation detail inside a larger capability (formatting, config handling), not a standalone product bet. It de-risks a small piece of a feature we may already be planning.

When to Consider This Package

Consider it when:

• We need reliable detection (tabs vs. spaces, indent width) or conversion across strings and files, and want to avoid hand-rolling edge-case handling (mixed indent, inconsistent widths, blank lines, string literals).
• It lives inside a PHP/Laravel codebase and the need is genuinely narrow — no desire to pull in a full formatter (PHP-CS-Fixer, Prettier-equivalent, etc.).
• We want a permissively licensed (MIT), small-footprint dependency for a non-critical path.

Look elsewhere / be cautious when:

• Maintenance risk: Last release was 2022-03-20 and the project is small (~40 stars). For a stable, tiny utility this can be acceptable, but we should vendor or pin it, and be prepared to fork or replace it. Do not put it on a critical path where a security patch might be needed.
• The real need is full formatting or linting — use an established formatter instead; this package won't cover style rules, syntax awareness, or language-specific quoting.
• We only need one trivial case (e.g., always output 4 spaces) — a two-line implementation avoids a dependency entirely.
• We need active upstream support, security responsiveness, or SLA-style guarantees.

How to Pitch It (Stakeholders)

To executives: This is a tiny, MIT-licensed utility that handles one fiddly problem — figuring out how a piece of text or file is indented and converting it. It's not a platform or a strategic bet; think of it as a reliable helper that lets us ship a formatting/config feature without us re-implementing edge cases ourselves. Cost and lock-in are near zero, and it can be replaced in an afternoon if needed. The main caveat is that it hasn't been updated since 2022, so we'd pin the version and keep the integration thin.

To engineering: colinodell/indentation gives us indentation detection and conversion for strings and files, hiding the messy cases (mixed tabs/spaces, varying widths, blank lines). It's a small, focused dependency with no framework lock-in — good fit for code-snippet rendering, config ingestion, or CLI scaffolding. Caveats: low maintenance activity (last release 2022, modest star count), so wrap it behind a thin internal interface, pin the version, and treat it as replaceable. It is not a formatter — if we need full styling/linting, reach for a dedicated tool and use this only for the indent-specific slice.