Coding Standard Laravel Package

Product Decisions This Supports

• Enforcing Consistent Code Quality: Aligns with initiatives to standardize codebases, reducing onboarding friction and improving maintainability.
• Accelerating Developer Onboarding: Reduces time spent debating style preferences by enforcing a predefined standard (PSR-1/PSR-2 compliant).
• CI/CD Pipeline Integration: Supports automated code review workflows, catching style violations early and reducing manual review overhead.
• Build vs. Buy Decision: Justifies adopting an open-source solution over custom rulesets or paid tools (e.g., PHP_CodeSniffer custom configurations) for small-to-medium teams.
• Roadmap for Scalability: Provides a foundation for future expansion (e.g., adding custom rules or integrating with static analysis tools like PHPStan).

When to Consider This Package

• Adopt if:

  • Your team uses Laravel/PHP and lacks a standardized coding style.
  • You prioritize PSR-1/PSR-2 compliance with minimal configuration.
  • Your CI/CD pipeline needs lightweight, rule-based linting without heavy dependencies.
  • You’re a small-to-medium team (0–50 engineers) with limited resources for custom tooling.

• Look elsewhere if:

  • You need modern PHP standards (e.g., PSR-12, PHP 8+ features)—this package is outdated (last release 2019).
  • Your team requires custom rules beyond PSR-1/PSR-2 (consider php-cs-fixer or PHP_CodeSniffer with custom configs).
  • You’re already using a comprehensive static analysis tool (e.g., Psalm, PHPStan) that includes linting.
  • Your codebase is highly specialized (e.g., legacy systems with non-PSR-compliant conventions).

How to Pitch It (Stakeholders)

For Executives: "This lightweight, open-source package enforces PHP coding standards (PSR-1/PSR-2) automatically in our CI pipeline, reducing manual code reviews and onboarding time. It’s a low-cost way to improve code consistency across the team—think of it as ‘auto-formatting for style.’ Since it integrates seamlessly with Laravel and PHP, we can roll it out without disrupting existing workflows."

For Engineering: *"The Sunrise Coding Standard is a minimalist alternative to PHP_CodeSniffer for teams already aligned with PSR-1/PSR-2. It’s:

• Fast: Lightweight XML-based ruleset (no heavy PHP dependencies).
• Simple: Zero-config for basic use (just point it at src/ and tests/).
• Future-proof: Built on PSR standards, so it won’t conflict with modern Laravel practices. Tradeoff: It’s outdated (2019), but since it’s just linting, we can replace it later if needed. For now, it’s a drop-in solution to enforce consistency without reinventing the wheel."*

For Developers: *"Add this to your composer.json and your CI will auto-check your code against PSR-1/PSR-2. No more ‘style nitpicks’ in PRs—just fix the errors the bot flags. Example setup:

composer require sunrise/coding-standard

Then configure it in your phpcs.xml:

<rule ref="vendor/sunrise/coding-standard/ruleset.xml"/>
<file>src/</file>
<file>tests/</file>

Run it via ./vendor/bin/phpcs in CI. Done."*