Package Boost

[!WARNING] sandermuller/package-boost is deprecated and split into two successor packages. This repository is in maintenance mode — no new features. Existing installs continue to work; new projects should pick the successor that matches their target.

If you're building...	Use
A framework-agnostic Composer package	sandermuller/package-boost-php
A Laravel-specific Composer package	sandermuller/package-boost-laravel
A PHP application (not a package)	sandermuller/project-boost

Feature migration map:

Feature	New home
Skill-sync foundation, .ai/ source layout, 9-agent fan-out, managed .gitignore	sandermuller/boost-core (transitive via any successor)
package-development, cross-version-laravel-support, ci-matrix-troubleshooting, lean-dist, skill-authoring, readme, release-notes, upgrading skills	package-boost-php
Laravel-specific package skills (Boost-MCP integration, McpJsonEmitter)	package-boost-laravel

Migration: composer remove sandermuller/package-boost && composer require --dev sandermuller/package-boost-php (and add sandermuller/package-boost-laravel alongside if your package targets Laravel). Skills + guidelines you authored under .ai/ keep working unchanged — both successors consume the same source layout.

The legacy 0.15.x tag stays on Packagist for existing composer.lock references. No further releases planned. Issues should be filed against the appropriate successor repo.

AI tooling sync for Composer packages — Laravel-aware, framework-agnostic supported. Bridges the gap between Laravel Boost (designed for applications) and package development with Orchestra Testbench, and works the same way for non-Laravel Composer packages that adopt Testbench as a dev-only harness.

What It Does

• Syncs .ai/skills/ to per-agent skill dirs (.claude/skills/, .cursor/skills/, .agents/skills/, .github/skills/, .junie/skills/, .kiro/skills/) so 9 agents — Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Codex, Gemini, Junie, Kiro, OpenCode, Amp — can use them
• Syncs .ai/guidelines/ into CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, and GEMINI.md
• Generates .mcp.json pointing to vendor/bin/testbench boost:mcp when Boost is installed
• Ships a package-development skill that teaches AI agents how to work with Testbench
• Ships a cross-version-laravel-support skill for packages that must span multiple Laravel / PHP majors — composer constraints, feature detection, version guards, Testbench compatibility
• Ships a ci-matrix-troubleshooting skill that diagnoses red CI matrix cells — prefer-lowest / prefer-stable resolves, security-advisories floors, Testbench / PHPUnit version interlock
• Ships a lean-dist skill that on-ramps consumers to stolt/lean-package-validator for .gitattributes hygiene, with AI-era export-ignore entries (.ai, .claude, AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, …) lpv's defaults don't cover
• Ships a readme skill that teaches the two README shapes (stub vs comprehensive), required sections, voice, and a canonical staleness-audit pattern — with a references/laravel-package.md layer for Laravel-package-specific conventions
• Ships a release-notes skill that helps maintainers draft GitHub release bodies — defaulting to GitHub's auto-generated format and overriding only when major/breaking — with Laravel-package-specific guidance for version-matrix shifts and CHANGELOG-automation interplay
• Ships an upgrading skill that teaches the canonical UPGRADING.md shape (reverse-chronological per-major sections, version-comment-labelled before/after code, impact tagging, stable H2 anchors that release-notes' ## Breaking changes bullets link to) — with Laravel-package conventions for the four observed filename variants and ecosystem-plugin upgrade patterns
• Ships a skill-authoring skill that guards against silent skill-name collisions across host / vendor / package-boost defaults, teaches activating frontmatter, and pins the .ai/skills/ vs resources/boost/skills/ source-dir choice

Agent coverage

package-boost:sync writes to the same paths each agent reads from, mirroring Laravel Boost's src/Install/Agents/ matrix:

.agents/skills is shared across Codex, Gemini, OpenCode, and Amp — sync writes there once and dedupes. Trim the list to the agents you actually use via package-boost:install (or set agents in config/package-boost.php directly).

Note on skill-dir consumption. Today only Claude Code natively reads its skill dir as auto-activatable skills (each SKILL.md becomes a tool-callable agent). The other eight agents primarily consume the per-agent guidelines file (AGENTS.md / CLAUDE.md / GEMINI.md), which package-boost concatenates from .ai/guidelines/ and shipped defaults. Their skill dirs are written for forward compatibility so the same .ai/skills/ source becomes useful to each tool the moment it ships skill support — you don't need to re-author or re-sync.

Installation

composer require sandermuller/package-boost --dev

Add the service provider to your testbench.yaml:

providers:
  - SanderMuller\PackageBoost\PackageBoostServiceProvider

Framework-agnostic packages

Package-boost works for any Composer package, not just Laravel packages — Testbench is used as a dev-only command harness, not a runtime dependency of the package being developed. If your package doesn't already use Testbench, add it alongside package-boost:

composer require orchestra/testbench --dev
composer require sandermuller/package-boost --dev

Create testbench.yaml at the package root with the framework sentinel and the package-boost provider — nothing else is required:

laravel: '@testbench'

providers:
  - SanderMuller\PackageBoost\PackageBoostServiceProvider

Then sync:

vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:sync

.mcp.json generation is skipped automatically when laravel/boost isn't installed (mcp.action: "skipped", reason: "laravel-boost-not-installed" in the JSON output) — guidelines and skills sync as normal.

The verified framework-agnostic flow is package-boost:sync plus the zero-config "all agents" default. The interactive package-boost:install picker described under Usage below persists its choice via Testbench's workbench/ scaffolding helpers; adopters that haven't run vendor/bin/testbench workbench:install should either skip package-boost:install entirely (the default already syncs every supported agent) or hand-edit workbench/config/package-boost.php after a one-time vendor/bin/testbench vendor:publish --tag=package-boost-config.

Some shipped skills are Laravel-specific by design (package-development, cross-version-laravel-support, ci-matrix-troubleshooting). They auto-activate only on prompts that mention Laravel-shaped tooling and are otherwise idle, so they cost nothing in a framework-agnostic repo.

Usage

1. (Optional) Pick which agents to sync

vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:install

Interactive picker — defaults to "all 9" and pre-checks any agent already detected in your project (existing .cursor/, .kiro/, etc.) or imported from laravel/boost's own boost.json if present. The choice is persisted to workbench/config/package-boost.php.

Skip this step entirely to keep the zero-config default (all 9 agents). Override non-interactively with --all, --agents=claude_code,cursor, or --no-import.

2. Create your skills and guidelines

.ai/
├── guidelines/
│   └── my-conventions.md
└── skills/
    └── my-skill/
        └── SKILL.md

Or scaffold them with the right frontmatter pre-filled:

vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:new skill my-skill --description="One-line auto-activation hook."
vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:new guideline my-conventions

package-boost:new rejects collisions unless you pass --force, and validates the name against the same kebab-case shape (^[a-z][a-z0-9-]*$) the frontmatter linter enforces — so a freshly scaffolded skill always passes package-boost:doctor without further edits.

3. Sync to agent directories

vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:sync

4. Commit the generated files

The sync copies your .ai/ files to the directories each AI tool expects. Commit both the source (.ai/) and the generated files (.claude/, .cursor/, .agents/, .github/, .junie/, .kiro/, CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, GEMINI.md).

Selective sync

vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:sync --skills
vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:sync --guidelines
vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:sync --mcp

CI drift check

vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:sync --check

Reports planned actions without writing. Exits non-zero if any skill, guideline, or MCP target differs from its source — or if any host .ai/skills/<name>/SKILL.md is missing required frontmatter (name, description) or has a name/directory mismatch. Shipped and vendor skill issues surface as warnings only; --check fails on host issues so CI catches them before they ship. Use in CI to catch "forgot to sync" commits.

JSON output

vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:sync --check --format=json

Emits a structured JSON document on stdout — parseable by jq or programmatic consumers:

{
    "schema": 1,
    "check": true,
    "drift": false,
    "skills": { "new": [], "updated": [], "removed": [], "unchanged": 6 },
    "guidelines": { "new": [], "updated": [], "removed": [], "unchanged": 3 },
    "mcp": { "action": "unchanged", "target": ".mcp.json" }
}

Shape contract:

• skills and guidelines carry { new, updated, removed, unchanged }. Each non-unchanged array holds per-target entries with fields:
  • target (string) — always present, relative to the package root.
  • hint (string, optional) — advisory prose. For skills: "symlink → <relative target>" on updated actions. For guidelines: "+N lines" / "-N lines" / "content updated" on updated/new actions. No hint on removed or unchanged. Not a command-to-run; the fix for any drift is package-boost:sync without --check.
  • line_delta (int, optional, guidelines only) — integer line difference of the target file between its current state and what the sync would write. Only the <package-boost-guidelines> block is rewritten, so line_delta is effectively the synced-region delta (file content outside the block is never touched).
• mcp carries { action, target } — always a single object, never an array. action is "new", "updated", or "unchanged".
• skipped categories report structurally:
  • skills / guidelines when no sources are found: { "skipped": "no-sources" }.
  • mcp when Laravel Boost isn't installed: { "action": "skipped", "reason": "laravel-boost-not-installed" }.
  • mcp when claude_code is filtered out of the agent selection: { "action": "skipped", "reason": "claude-not-selected" }.
• Arrays are stable-sorted by target for deterministic diffs across runs.

Example GitHub Actions step that fails the job and lists drifted targets:

- name: Check package-boost sync
  run: |
      report=$(vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:sync --check --format=json || true)
      drift=$(echo "$report" | jq -r '.drift')
      if [ "$drift" = "true" ]; then
          echo "::error::package-boost sync drift detected"
          echo "$report" | jq -r '
              (.skills.new, .skills.updated, .skills.removed)[]?.target,
              (.guidelines.new, .guidelines.updated, .guidelines.removed)[]?.target,
              if .mcp.action == "new" or .mcp.action == "updated" then .mcp.target else empty end
          ' | sort -u | sed "s|^|  - |"
          exit 1
      fi

Pass --show-unchanged to turn the unchanged field from an int count into a full array of { target } entries.

Verbose output

vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:sync --show-unchanged

By default, the sync output lists only targets that changed and folds unchanged ones into the total: ... summary. Pass --show-unchanged to print a line per unchanged target as well.

Migrating from older versions

Prior to the multi-agent rollout, package-boost wrote .github/copilot-instructions.md. Upstream Boost migrated Copilot guidelines to AGENTS.md, so package-boost no longer writes that file. Sync warns whenever the legacy file is detected with our tag block. To remove it automatically — only when the file contains nothing but a fresh-from-sync block:

vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:sync --prune

--prune refuses if the file has user content outside the block, or if the block has been edited / is stale relative to current .ai/ sources. Run a normal package-boost:sync first to refresh, then --prune to clean up.

If you narrow package-boost.agents after a previous "all" sync, sync also warns about leftover skill dirs / guideline files / mcp entries from agents that fell out of the selection. To delete them automatically, pass --prune-orphans:

vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:sync --prune-orphans

Skill dirs are removed wholesale (sync writes them in their entirety). Guideline files have just the <package-boost-guidelines> block stripped; the file is deleted only when nothing but whitespace remains, so user-authored content outside the block is preserved. .mcp.json has the laravel-boost entry removed when claude_code is deselected.

One-shot diagnostic

vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:doctor

Aggregates the checks otherwise scattered across --check, install, and the legacy / orphan warnings into a single report: configured + effective agents, sync drift counts, SKILL.md frontmatter issues, deselected-agent orphans, vendor skill collisions, MCP / Boost detection, the legacy Copilot file, and the .gitattributes managed block. Exits non-zero on any blocking finding; vendor / shipped frontmatter issues and skill collisions are advisory (rendered, but exit-zero) so upstream bugs you can't patch don't permablock CI.

vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:doctor --format=json

JSON variant is stable-shaped (schema: 1) and parseable by jq.

vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:doctor --fix

--fix auto-resolves the mechanically-safe categories — sync drift, deselected-agent orphans, the legacy .github/copilot-instructions.md file (when prunable), and the .gitattributes managed block — by delegating to package-boost:sync --prune --prune-orphans and package-boost:lean in one pass. Exit code is driven by the post-fix report: zero when everything resolved, non-zero when anything still needs human attention. Frontmatter issues block exit only when they live under your host .ai/skills/ — shipped (resources/boost/skills/) and third-party vendor SKILL.md issues surface as warnings but do not flip exit, so CI isn't held hostage by upstream skill bugs you can't fix. package-boost.agents typos and skill collisions stay report-only for the same reason — --fix cannot resolve them.

--fix --format=json adds a top-level fix object recording each category's attempted (what doctor saw pre-fix) and resolved (what actually changed). Refusals — for example sync declining to prune a Copilot file with user content — surface as { attempted: true, resolved: false }, distinguishable from a noop ({ attempted: false, resolved: false }).

.gitattributes hygiene

vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:lean

Idempotently writes a managed # >>> package-boost (managed) >>> / # <<< package-boost (managed) <<< block into .gitattributes covering AI-era export-ignore paths (.ai/, .claude/, .cursor/, .agents/, .junie/, .kiro/, AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, GEMINI.md, …) so composer archive / Packagist --prefer-dist tarballs stay lean. User-authored entries outside the marker block are preserved verbatim. Pass --check to fail CI when the block drifts.

The shipped lean-dist skill teaches the validation side (stolt/lean-package-validator); this command handles the write side.

Composer script

{
    "scripts": {
        "sync-ai": "vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:sync"
    }
}

Composer auto-sync hook

Register package-boost:sync as a post-autoload-dump hook so composer install / update / dump-autoload catch "forgot to sync" mistakes automatically. Complements the --check CI gate: CI catches stale generated files on the server, the hook catches them on the contributor's machine.

Strict variant (recommended) — matches the CI contract. If anything has drifted, the install fails and the contributor re-runs package-boost:sync by hand:

{
    "scripts": {
        "post-autoload-dump": [
            "@php vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:sync --check"
        ]
    }
}

Auto-fix variant — friendlier but mutates the working tree when drift exists, which leaves uncommitted changes behind after a fresh composer install on a dirty branch:

{
    "scripts": {
        "post-autoload-dump": [
            "@php vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:sync"
        ]
    }
}

Boost-less packages — if the host doesn't depend on laravel/boost, narrow the hook to skip MCP (otherwise it emits a "Laravel Boost is not installed" warn on every composer run):

{
    "scripts": {
        "post-autoload-dump": [
            "@php vendor/bin/testbench package-boost:sync --check --skills --guidelines"
        ]
    }
}

The hook runs via /bin/sh on posix and cmd.exe on Windows; single-command-per-array-entry form works on both. Chained shell operators (&&, ||) are not portable across composer's shell layers — use separate array entries if you need multiple steps.

With Laravel Boost

When laravel/boost is also installed as a dev dependency, you get:

• MCP server — package-boost:sync --mcp generates the correct .mcp.json config
• Doc search — Boost's search-docs tool works out of the box via Testbench
• Shipped package-development skill — ships via resources/boost/skills/ and is bundled into every selected agent's skill dir by package-boost:sync, so downstream agents always get it regardless of Boost version.
• Package-tuned foundation — ships resources/boost/guidelines/foundation.md with package-dev framing (Testbench harness, semver, public API discipline). package-boost:sync bundles it into the <package-boost-guidelines> block ahead of any user-authored .ai/guidelines/ content, separated by a horizontal rule.
• App-only guidelines stripped — defaults exclude foundation (Boost's app-tuned version), Inertia, Livewire, Filament, Volt, Folio, Pennant, Wayfinder, Nightwatch, Pulse, Herd, Sail, Tailwind, Vite, deployments, and laravel/style|api|localization

Customising excluded guidelines

Publish the config and edit config/package-boost.php:

vendor/bin/testbench vendor:publish --tag=package-boost-config

The excluded_boost_guidelines array is merged into boost.guidelines.exclude at boot. Keys match Boost's GuidelineComposer keys exactly (e.g. livewire/core, filament/v4, herd).

Vendor-contributed skills and guidelines

Installed Composer packages that ship resources/boost/skills/<name>/SKILL.md or resources/boost/guidelines/*.md are picked up automatically and merged into the sync. Load order:

1. Package-boost's shipped defaults
2. Vendor packages (alphabetical by vendor/name)
3. Host .ai/

For skills, later entries override earlier ones on name collisions — host .ai/skills/<name> always wins over a vendor contribution of the same name. For guidelines, each source contributes its own block and they concatenate in load order, separated by ---.

Disable discovery entirely or skip specific packages via config/package-boost.php:

'discover_vendor_packages' => true,

'excluded_vendor_packages' => [
    'sandermuller/package-boost',
],

How It Differs from Laravel Boost

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for a per-release history. Entries are auto-generated from GitHub Releases.

License

MIT