Phar Updater Laravel Package

Product Decisions This Supports

• Enables secure, automated updates for PHAR-based CLI applications without custom development, reducing time-to-market for self-updating tools.
• Supports "buy vs build" decision by providing a battle-tested solution (used in Laravel Zero) for a complex security-critical feature (secure updates), avoiding reinventing the wheel.
• Critical for product roadmaps involving distributed CLI tools where user experience requires seamless updates (e.g., internal enterprise tools, open-source utilities).
• Reduces maintenance overhead by handling SSL verification, rollback, and multiple update strategies (SHA hashes, GitHub Releases) out-of-the-box.

When to Consider This Package

• Adopt when building a PHP PHAR-based command-line tool that requires secure, automatic updates for end-users.
• Ideal for projects where updates must be handled via a single executable file (e.g., Laravel Zero apps, standalone utilities).
• Avoid if your application is not distributed as a PHAR (e.g., web apps, containerized services) or if updates are managed via system package managers (apt, Homebrew).
• Do not use if your security requirements necessitate custom update logic beyond the provided strategies (though custom strategies are supported, the package is optimized for standard PHAR update patterns).

How to Pitch It (Stakeholders)

By adopting laravel-zero/phar-updater, we eliminate the need to build and maintain a custom self-update system for our PHAR-based CLI tools, reducing engineering effort by weeks and ensuring secure, reliable updates for users. Executives gain reduced support costs and faster feature delivery; engineers get a battle-tested solution with built-in rollback and multiple update strategies, avoiding complex security pitfalls.