Session Laravel Package

Product Decisions This Supports

• Legacy PHP → Laravel migration sequencing (strangler-fig). This package lets Laravel's authentication guards read and write the same native PHP $_SESSION the existing PHP application already uses. That is the difference between a staged migration where users stay logged in across both apps, and a hard cutover where you must migrate auth, sessions, and features in one release. It buys the "parallel run" option.
• Build vs. buy on the session/auth layer. Three candidates: (a) adopt this MIT package, (b) build a bridge in-house against Illuminate\Session\Store (est. 2–6 engineer-weeks including tests), (c) re-platform identity now (1–2 quarters). This package makes (a) viable enough to price against (b) and (c).
• Roadmap deferral, not cancellation. It unblocks shipping Laravel features to already-logged-in users this quarter while the full identity re-platform stays on the roadmap. The decision it supports is "sequence," not "skip."
• Internal tooling coherence. If the org runs several PHP tools behind one session cookie, this is a cheap way to keep login state consistent without standing up an IdP immediately.
• Out of scope for greenfield. If you're choosing a session strategy for a new build, this package is irrelevant — Laravel's built-in drivers are the default and should stay the default.

When to Consider This Package

Consider it when all of these hold:

• A legacy PHP application authenticates via native $_SESSION (session_start(), custom save handler, or hosting-imposed session.save_path) and is being migrated to Laravel incrementally.
• Users must remain logged in across both applications during the transition — same cookie domain/path, shared session storage.
• Session storage is already managed at the PHP level and cannot be changed quickly (bespoke handler, PHP-serialized payloads in shared Redis/memcached, shared-hosting constraints).
• You can vendor/fork and pin the dependency, and you have a PHP engineer who can audit session handling.

Look elsewhere when:

• Greenfield Laravel. Use the built-in file/database/redis/cookie drivers. No adapter needed.
• The real requirement is cross-application SSO. Use an IdP (OIDC/SAML via Socialite, Passport, Keycloak, Entra, Auth0). Shared session state couples deployments and rollbacks — a real SSO layer does not.
• API-first, SPA, or mobile clients. Token auth (Sanctum/Passport) is correct; sessions don't travel well across clients.
• You need vendor support, an SLA, or a security-reviewed dependency. 9 stars, 0 dependents, and a single maintainer mean no community validation and no incident history to lean on. Zero dependents is the loudest signal here.
• Compliance scope requires evidence. SOC 2 / PCI / pen-test scope will ask for documented guarantees on session fixation, ID regeneration, and cookie flags that a package this size is unlikely to provide.

Acceptance criteria before committing (PM-level):

• Session ID regenerated on privilege change (login, role change); logout destroys server-side state.
• Flash data, CSRF token, and Auth::user() behavior match stock Laravel expectations under test.
• Concurrent requests do not corrupt or clobber session data.
• Secure / HttpOnly / SameSite cookie flags preserved end-to-end.
• Upgrade path validated against the exact Laravel major version you run, with a pinned version and a documented fork procedure.

How to Pitch It (Stakeholders)

For executives: "This is a small, free, MIT-licensed adapter that lets our new Laravel work run alongside the legacy PHP app using the same login session. It buys us the option to ship Laravel features this quarter without waiting for — or funding — a full identity re-platform. License cost is zero; the real cost is roughly one to two weeks of engineering to audit, pin, and test it, plus a named owner. The risk is that it's a single-maintainer package with almost no adoption, so we treat it as internal glue we're prepared to fork, not a strategic dependency — and the identity re-platform stays on the roadmap rather than getting canceled on the strength of it."

For engineering: "It's a session-store adapter, not an auth system. It only pays off if the legacy app's $_SESSION must remain authoritative during migration. It does not remove the need for a real SSO/IdP decision — it defers it. Assume we own the code: vendor it, pin the version, and write contract tests against Illuminate\Session\Store covering regenerate, invalidate, migrate, flash data, and token behavior. Do not adopt it if legacy and Laravel sessions can't safely share cookie scope and storage — that's a hard stop, not a tuning problem."