Realtime Compiler Laravel Package

Product Decisions This Supports

• Developer-experience investment: This is a realtime compile/watch server for HydePHP sites. It shortens the content-to-preview loop, so the decision it informs is whether we invest in authoring velocity for our static/SSG surfaces rather than treating dev tooling as a nice-to-have.
• Build vs. buy for live preview: If we need "save a Markdown file, see the site update" behavior for a Hyde-based site, this replaces a bespoke watcher + reload script. Adopt vs. build is the core call; the answer is almost always "adopt if already on Hyde."
• Standardizing on HydePHP for content-heavy sites: A healthy realtime compiler is a signal that the HydePHP authoring workflow is viable for docs, blogs, and marketing pages. This package is a supporting input to that platform decision, not the decision itself.
• Roadmap input for content operations: If non-engineers (docs writers, marketing) will author content, live preview materially reduces review cycles and broken-build surprises. That supports prioritizing an "editor preview" workstream.
• Use cases it unlocks: internal documentation portals, developer-facing docs sites, blogs, and marketing/landing pages where the build is fast and local preview is the primary feedback loop.

When to Consider This Package

Consider it when:

• You are already using (or actively piloting) HydePHP — this is ecosystem-locked and has no value outside it.
• Your bottleneck is authoring iteration speed, not build correctness or deployment.
• Preview is a local/dev concern only; you don't need this in production.
• You are comfortable with a thin, optional dev dependency that engineering can drop or fork without product impact.

Look elsewhere when:

• You are not on HydePHP. There is no portable value here.
• You need production-grade preview environments (per-PR deploy previews, stakeholder review URLs). Use your host's preview feature (Netlify/Vercel/Cloudflare) instead.
• You need an editorial CMS workflow with roles, scheduling, and approvals — this is a compiler, not a CMS.
• You require vendor support, SLAs, or a broad community to lean on. The footprint is very small (single-digit stars, zero dependents), so you effectively own the risk. Treat it as a convenience, not a platform dependency, and pin the version.
• Your team is not PHP/Laravel-fluent; the maintenance burden of a niche tool outweighs the workflow gain.

How to Pitch It (Stakeholders)

To executives: This is a low-cost, low-risk developer-productivity tool inside the HydePHP ecosystem. It compiles and reflects site changes in realtime during authoring, which shortens the content review cycle for docs and marketing pages. It has no production surface area and no customer-facing risk — the downside is bounded to developer time. The tradeoff is community size: adoption is essentially niche, so we should treat it as an internal convenience we're prepared to own, not a strategic dependency.

To engineering: Optional, dev-only dependency that slots into the existing Hyde toolchain. It removes hand-rolled file-watching and reload scripts. Caveat: very small community footprint and zero dependents means limited external validation — pin the version, keep it out of the production build path, and be ready to fork or replace if maintenance stalls. Recommend a short timeboxed spike to confirm it handles our content volume and file layout before we commit it to the standard dev setup.

Recommendation: Trial it in a timeboxed spike on the next Hyde-based content project. Fund it as developer experience, not as platform infrastructure.