Swiss Knife Laravel Package

Getting Started

Install the package as a dev dependency: composer require rector/swiss-knife --dev. Start by integrating one or two commands into your CI pipeline—check-conflicts to prevent merge conflict commits and check-commented-code to catch accidentally left commented-out code. Run them early in your workflow and treat failures as blocking issues.

Implementation Patterns

Use the tool as a multi-purpose hygiene agent across the development lifecycle:

• Pre-commit / CI hygiene: Run check-conflicts, check-commented-code, and find-multi-classes to enforce baseline quality and PSR-4 compliance before merging.
• Refactoring guidance: Use finalize-classes, privatize-constants, and spot-lazy-traits to suggest safe cleanup steps; apply with --dry-run first, review diffs, then commit.
• Test scaffolding: Leverage MockWire in unit tests to simplify constructor-heavy services—pass only mocks needed for the current test, leaving dependencies auto-mocked and test intent clearer.
• Symfony optimization: Run generate-symfony-config-builders and split-config-per-package to modernize config structures and enable IDE autocompletion and static analysis.
• Data-driven refactor decisions: Use search-regex to quantify legacy patterns (e.g., deprecated $this->get() usage) before targeted Rector sets or manual removal.

Gotchas and Tips

• Dry-run is implicit for mutators: Most commands modifying files (finalize-classes, privatize-constants, namespace-to-psr-4) act directly—always use --dry-run first to preview changes. A recent release (2.3.3) now explicitly warns when --dry-run is used.
• File skipping uses fnmatch(): Patterns like --skip-file '*Controller.php' work with shell-style globs, not regex—test with vendor/bin/swiss-knife command . --dry-run to confirm exclusions.
• MockWire has no container magic: It only mocks unresolved constructor parameters. If a typehint is not injectable (e.g., scalar, interface not bound in DI), tests may fail—ensure auto-wiring works before relying on MockWire.
• Namespace-to-PSR-4 overwrites silently: Always back up or run --dry-run; the tool renames namespaces and expects src/ClassName.php → App\ClassName mapping. Verify no file collisions exist.
• spot-lazy-traits default is strict: Traits used ≤2 times get flagged. Increase --max-used for libraries where traits are intentionally reused across internal implementations.
• Windows console quirk: Prior to 2.3.3, progress bars broke on Windows in Symfony 6.4.24—upgrade to avoid visual glitches, though functionality remains correct.