Code Sniffer Laravel Package

Product Decisions This Supports

• Enforce consistent coding standards across PHP/Laravel projects, reducing onboarding friction and technical debt.
• Automate code quality checks in CI/CD pipelines, catching violations early (e.g., PSR-2/PSR-12 compliance, naming conventions).
• Build vs. Buy: Avoid reinventing custom linting rules; leverage this package’s 240+ sniffs (including stricter PhpCollectiveStrict) to standardize teams.
• Use Cases:
  • New projects: Enforce best practices from day one.
  • Legacy codebases: Gradually migrate with configurable severity (e.g., silence rules during transition).
  • Open-source contributions: Align with PHP-FIG standards while adding project-specific rules.
  • Team collaboration: Reduce merge conflicts by auto-fixing formatting (e.g., phpcbf).

When to Consider This Package

• Adopt if:
  • Your team uses PHP 8.1+ (minimum requirement).
  • You need PSR-2/PSR-12 compliance with additional Laravel-specific sniffs (e.g., Eloquent naming, Blade conventions).
  • You want CI integration (e.g., block PRs with violations) or IDE tooling (e.g., PHPStorm shortcuts).
  • Your project requires customizable strictness (e.g., PhpCollectiveStrict for new code, lenient rules for legacy).
• Look elsewhere if:
  • You’re using PHP < 8.1 (compatibility risk).
  • Your team prefers alternative standards (e.g., PHP-CS-Fixer for auto-fixing only).
  • You need JavaScript/TypeScript linting (use ESLint/TSLint instead).
  • Your project is small-scale and lacks CI/CD pipelines (manual checks may suffice).

How to Pitch It (Stakeholders)

For Executives: "This package standardizes our PHP codebase, reducing bugs and onboarding time by enforcing best practices automatically. It integrates seamlessly with CI/CD (e.g., CircleCI) and IDEs like PHPStorm, saving dev hours on manual reviews. For example, it catches issues like inconsistent naming or missing docblocks—problems that cost us ~$X/year in fixes. We can start with PhpCollective (PSR-2/PSR-12) and later adopt PhpCollectiveStrict for new features."

For Engineers: *"This is a drop-in replacement for custom linting rules. Key benefits:

• 240+ sniffs (PSR-compliant + Laravel-specific, e.g., Eloquent method naming).
• Auto-fix common issues with phpcbf (e.g., indentation, braces).
• IDE integration: Run checks with Ctrl+Comma in PHPStorm.
• CI-friendly: Add vendor/bin/phpcs to your pipeline to block violations.
• Customizable: Silence rules during migration or add project-specific sniffs. Example workflow:

composer require --dev php-collective/code-sniffer
composer cs-check  # Runs PHPCS with PhpCollective rules

No reinventing the wheel—just enforce consistency at scale."*

For Developers: *"This makes your code look and work better with minimal effort:

• Fix formatting in bulk with composer cs-fix.
• Catch errors early in PRs (e.g., missing @return tags).
• Avoid merge conflicts from style differences. Try it:

# Check your code
composer cs-check

# Fix auto-fixable issues
composer cs-fix

Pro tip: Add phpcs.xml to your repo to customize rules (e.g., stricter for new files)."*