- What is dyrynda/founder and what does it actually do?
- It is Michael Dyrynda's opinionated Laravel application starter template rather than a runtime library: a full application skeleton with auth scaffolding, user and role/permission management, an admin surface, and testing and CI conventions. You consume it with composer create-project or by forking the repository, and you then own every architectural decision it bakes in. It is best treated as a reference implementation for greenfield Laravel services.
- Can I composer require dyrynda/founder into an existing Laravel application?
- No. Founder is a starter application, not a package, so there is nothing to require into an established codebase and no service provider to register. Cherry-picking its role/permission wiring or admin scaffolding into an existing app is possible but manual and undocumented. If you are not starting a new Laravel project, read it as reference material only.
- Which Laravel and PHP versions does dyrynda/founder target?
- The last tagged release is dated 2022-06-05, which places the pinned dependencies around the Laravel 9 era on PHP 8.x. Current Laravel majors are several versions ahead, so expect to upgrade the framework and replace stale transitive dependencies before first use. Always confirm the exact constraints in the template's composer.json and run its test suite after upgrading.
- What auth, user, and role management does dyrynda/founder scaffold?
- It ships an opinionated, hand-rolled auth and user management layer with roles and permissions plus an admin surface for managing users. Because it is a template, those choices are baked in rather than configurable through a package API, and they must align with your identity provider and tenancy model. Review the generated models, policies, and routes before committing to it.
- Is dyrynda/founder still maintained?
- Activity is effectively dormant: the last release was 2022-06-05, the repository has roughly 47 stars, and there is little downstream usage or issue history to suggest ongoing review. The bus factor is one, since the maintainer's personal starter is the entire support surface. Treat upstream as historical reference and plan to maintain your own fork if you adopt it.
- Is dyrynda/founder safe to use in production?
- It can be a reasonable baseline for a greenfield internal Laravel service, but only after you upgrade it, run its tests, and review the auth and RBAC code yourself. The low adoption signal and lack of recent releases mean there is no evidence of a battle-tested or security-reviewed codebase. For anything production-critical in an existing estate, extract patterns from it instead of adopting it wholesale.
- How does dyrynda/founder compare to Laravel Breeze, Jetstream, or the default laravel/laravel skeleton?
- The official kits are actively maintained, current with the framework, and focused on auth UI scaffolding, while Founder is a heavier, older opinionated starter that also bundles user and RBAC management with an admin surface. That extra scaffolding can save setup time on day one but is expensive to unwind and is currently behind on Laravel versions. Choose the official kits when you want currency and support, and choose Founder only if its specific conventions match what you would build anyway.
- How much work is it to upgrade dyrynda/founder to a current Laravel version?
- Expect meaningful work: bump the framework and PHP constraints, replace stale transitive dependencies, and reconcile generated configuration with your environment and secrets conventions. A sensible spike is to run composer create-project locally, execute the template's own test suite, and time-box the upgrade to about a day before deciding adopt versus reference. Validate any compatibility claim by re-running those tests after upgrading.
- What does dyrynda/founder include for testing, CI, and containerization?
- As a starter template it bakes in a test harness and CI conventions alongside its auth and admin scaffolding, and it may include container setup, but all of that is pinned to the 2022 state of the repository. Do not assume any of it is usable as-is with your pipeline: review the test suite, static analysis, and image build steps, then rewire them to your own CI, SCA, and secret management. Verify each piece during the spike rather than trusting the template defaults.
- What license does dyrynda/founder use, and can I fork it as an internal baseline?
- The project is open source, so confirm the exact terms in the LICENSE file, which for Laravel starters of this era is typically MIT, before you fork it into an internal template. If you adopt it, move it into an org-named repository, pin dependencies, strip unused opinionated surfaces such as impersonation or admin routes, and wire it to your own CI and image pipeline. Document a named internal owner and a diff-from-upstream policy before a second team uses it.