gremo/pjax-bundle
Symfony bundle adding PJAX support, combining AJAX with pushState for faster navigation by swapping only changed page content. Hooks into Symfony's event system to detect PJAX requests and serve partial responses, cutting full page reloads with minimal setup.
Read this first: the package is a Symfony bundle, archived, with 4 stars and zero dependents. For a Laravel codebase it is not installable, not maintained, and not a supply-chain risk you need to take. Treat it as a reference implementation of a pattern, not a dependency. If you are actually in a Symfony app, composer require gremo/pjax-bundle plus bundle registration works, but you are adopting dead code.
Where to look first (in the repo, as documentation):
gremo_pjax_is_pjax()).gremo_pjax keys (container selector, link selector, timeout) are just the JS plugin options echoed into a template.Resources/views snippets — the layout-splitting convention is the whole idea.The first use case is always the same: a paginated, filterable index page. Cold load renders the full chrome (nav, sidebar, footer, asset tags). Clicking a pagination link or a filter re-renders only the results container. The bundle's contribution is making step two cheap — the server returns the same controller and template, minus the outer layout.
Laravel equivalent, day one. The client side is unchanged (jquery-pjax sends X-PJAX: true and X-PJAX-Container: <selector>). Server side you have two options:
// Option A: hand-rolled middleware (no dependency, ~20 lines)
public function handle($request, Closure $next)
{
$response = $next($request);
if ($request->header('X-PJAX')) {
$response->headers->set('Vary', 'X-PJAX', false);
// Blade layout choice happens in the view, not here — see below.
}
return $response;
}
{{-- resources/views/posts/index.blade.php --}}
@extends(request()->header('X-PJAX') ? 'layouts.fragment' : 'layouts.app')
@section('content')
<div id="pjax-container"> ... results ... </div>
@endsection
spatie/laravel-pjax does essentially this (middleware + Blade directive) and is the closest maintained analogue — worth reading before you write your own.
Layout split via conditional @extends. The bundle's core trick, transliterated to Blade. Keep layouts.fragment deliberately dumb: no <html>, no <head>, no asset tags — just the container and its content. If layouts.fragment drifts from layouts.app the page will look correct on first load and subtly wrong after the first PJAX navigation.
Header-driven, not route-driven. Do not add a /pjax/... route prefix. The plugin sends X-PJAX (and _pjax=#selector as a query fallback), so the same URL serves both representations. This keeps deep links, SEO, and the back button working.
Container and link selectors are a contract between config and markup. The bundle's selector config must match the id of the element you wrap results in; the link_selector must match your pagination markup. When someone changes #pjax-container to #results and forgets the config, you get a silent full-page reload — no error.
Always set Vary: X-PJAX. This is the single most important integration tip and the most commonly skipped one. Without it, a CDN or reverse proxy will happily serve the fragment to a cold visitor (or vice versa). In Laravel, set it in the middleware above; in Symfony, in a response listener. Also make sure your cache key does not ignore the header.
Forms need extra work. jquery-pjax intercepts anchors only. Multi-step forms and filter forms need $.pjax.submit() wired to submit events, or the jquery-form plugin. Budget for this — the bundle gives you nothing here.
Rebinding JS on pjax:end. Anything initialized on DOMContentLoaded (date pickers, select2, tooltips, chart libs) will be dead after the first fragment swap. Centralize it:
function initWidgets() { /* select2, datepickers, etc. */ }
$(document).on('pjax:end', initWidgets).ready(initWidgets);
Redirects and X-PJAX-URL. PJAX follows 302s as full navigations in some plugin versions. When you need to change the address bar without reloading (e.g. after a sort change), have the server emit an X-PJAX-URL header on the fragment response.
Escalation path. If you find yourself writing pjax:end rebinding code in every file, that is the signal to move to Hotwire/Turbo or htmx — both are maintained, both handle forms/redirects/rebinding (turbo:load, hx-*) as first-class concerns, and both have Laravel packages (hotwired-laravel/turbo-laravel). The bundle predates all of this.
<script> inserted via innerHTML-style swaps. Any per-page JS must live in the outer layout or be re-invoked from pjax:end.pjax:end and push to your analytics tool, otherwise your traffic numbers silently drop for your most-used page.pjax:error handler that falls back to window.location = xhr.url.cacheBust. Older jquery-pjax defaults can serve stale fragments on browser-back. If state looks wrong after back/forward, set cacheBust: true and confirm the Vary header is correct.X-PJAX: true on the request? If not, the plugin isn't intercepting (selector mismatch, or the link is outside the container and lacks data-pjax). (2) Is the response the fragment or the full page? If full, your header check is wrong — check middleware ordering and header casing. (3) Did it look right for a second and then flash? That's an accidental full navigation from a redirect.@extends inside @extends with a conditional in the middle produces confusing whitespace and duplicated container markup. Keep exactly one conditional @extends per view, at the top.jquery-pjax is unmaintained upstream (defunkt archived it years ago). Even on Symfony, you are pairing an archived server bundle with an archived client plugin. Fine for a legacy app you are keeping on jQuery; a bad choice for anything new.twig.exception_controller-style overrides — messy), and the config tree (fork it). Archival means no upstream fixes for Twig 3 / Symfony 6+ signatures; expect to patch the getFunctions() return types yourself. That is the real cost of a 4-star archived bundle.How can I help you explore Laravel packages today?