Simple Page View Bundle Laravel Package

Getting Started

• Install and inspect before integrating. composer require <vendor>/<package> then immediately read the package's composer.json for its Laravel and PHP constraints. At v1.0 the constraint range is the clearest signal of what the maintainer actually tests against; if it excludes your Laravel major, stop here.
• Look at the test suite before the README. For a fresh 1.0, tests/ is the most honest specification of behaviour — it will show the real happy paths, the edge cases the author cared about, and which Laravel versions are exercised in CI.
• Publish, then read, the config. php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Vendor\Package\PackageServiceProvider" (or --tag=package-config). Read every key and its default before changing anything; published config that diverges from defaults is the #1 source of "works locally, not in CI" issues.
• Confirm registration. Modern Laravel auto-discovers providers via composer.json → extra.laravel.providers. If the package predates that convention or ships a facade, decide explicitly whether you need manual registration — never leave it ambiguous.
• First use case: one call site. Wire the package into a single controller or job behind a feature flag, with a test that asserts the observable outcome. This gives you a rollback switch and a working reference implementation before you touch anything shared.
• Check the migration story. If it ships migrations, run php artisan migrate --pretend first and confirm table names don't collide with your domain.

Implementation Patterns

• Resolve from the container, never instantiate. Use constructor injection or app(...)/resolve(...). A hand-rolled new PackageClient() bypasses config, connection pooling, and any test doubles the package registers.
• Wrap it in a thin adapter. Define your own interface (App\Contracts\X) and a single class that delegates to the package. Your controllers and jobs then depend on your interface. This is cheap now and is the only thing that makes a future major-version bump or package swap an afternoon rather than a sprint.
• Keep secrets in env(), defaults in config. The package's config file should only ever read env() directly for its own bootstrap values. Everything else belongs in your .env and gets read by your config files.
• Test with the package's own fakes where they exist. Many Laravel packages ship a ::fake() or a swappable binding; prefer those over HTTP mocking or hitting the real integration. For anything without a fake, bind a stub in the container inside setUp() and assert against the contract.
• Drive side effects through events and queues. If the package dispatches events, hook them in listeners rather than editing published config or subclassing internals. If it offers a queued path, take it — synchronous third-party calls inside a request are the most common cause of production timeouts.
• Roll out in phases. Flag on for internal users → a percentage of traffic → default. Watch error rates and latency at each step; a 1.0 release has no long tail of production battle-testing behind it.
• Pin the version in composer.json and read the changelog on every bump. "^1.0" is reasonable only if you actually review patch releases; otherwise pin exactly and upgrade deliberately.
• Register the service provider explicitly in your test suite if you use Orchestra\Testbench-style setups or withoutProviders. Auto-discovery does not apply in every testing context.

Gotchas and Tips

• Config cache is the classic trap. After publishing or editing the package config, run php artisan config:clear. In production, config is cached at deploy time — an env() change without a re-cache (or a config:cache in your deploy script) will silently do nothing.
• Double registration. If you manually add the provider and auto-discovery finds it, you can get two instances, duplicated routes, or doubled listeners. Check bootstrap/providers.php (or config/app.php) and extra.laravel.providers together.
• Long-running workers hold state. Under Octane, Swoole, or a queue worker, singletons registered by the package survive between requests/jobs. If the package caches per-request data (auth user, tenant, connection), look for a reset hook or octane.warm/flush listener, and prefer scoped() bindings where the package allows it.
• "Semver 1.0" ≠ frozen behaviour. A 1.0 promise means the public API won't break in a patch, not that output, ordering, or error messages are stable. Don't write assertions against exception strings or exact payload shapes.
• Migrations published out of order. Publishing a package migration into database/migrations gives it the current timestamp, so it runs after your existing tables. If it alters your schema, rename the file to sit at the correct point.
• package:discover and autoload drift. After adding the dependency, composer dump-autoload and php artisan package:discover — stale discovery caches produce "class not found" on a machine that clearly has the package installed.
• Check the exception contract. Note what the package throws for transient vs permanent failures, and wrap calls so a package-specific exception doesn't leak into your HTTP responses. Map failures to your own domain exceptions at the adapter boundary.
• Extension points to prefer: published config, container bindings against the package's interfaces, event listeners, and macros/factories the package documents. Avoid subclassing concrete classes and avoid editing vendor/ — both make the next composer update a merge conflict.
• Debugging checklist: php artisan about for environment drift → config('package.key') inside tinker to confirm resolved config → php artisan route:list for clashing routes → the package's own log channel (often config/logging.php has a dedicated entry) → APP_DEBUG=true locally to surface the underlying exception.
• Keep a short upgrade note in your repo. For a 1.0 release, record the installed version, the published config hash, and the integration points you've touched. It's five lines today and saves an hour at the next upgrade.