Doctrine Doc Bundle Laravel Package

Getting Started

composer require wizad/doctrine-doc-bundle

Register the bundle (Symfony 3 / early 4 style — this package predates Symfony 4 autoconfiguration):

// app/AppKernel.php
$bundles = [
    // ...
    new Wizad\DoctrineDocBundle\WizadDoctrineDocBundle(),
];

Import the bundle's routing so you get the browser UI:

# app/config/routing.yml
wizad_doctrine_doc:
    resource: "@WizadDoctrineDocBundle/Resources/config/routing.yml"
    prefix:   /_doctrine-doc

Clear cache and hit /_doctrine-doc (check the actual route name in Resources/config/routing.yml — the prefix is yours to choose).

Where to look first:

1. Resources/config/routing.yml and the bundle's Controller/ — confirms the route and entry point.
2. The bundle DependencyInjection/Configuration.php — this is the only reliable source of truth for available config keys (this bundle has minimal docs).
3. Your Doctrine mapping (annotations/XML/YAML) — the output is only as good as your metadata.

First use case: point it at a small bundle of entities and use the generated page during an onboarding walkthrough or as living reference for a legacy schema. It reads Doctrine's ClassMetadataFactory, so anything mapped (relations, inversed sides, column types) renders without extra work.

Implementation Patterns

Onboarding / schema documentation site. Mount the bundle under a firewall-protected path so only authenticated devs/staff can browse it. Because it reads live metadata, the docs never drift from code — unlike a hand-written ERD.

Per-environment exposure. Only register routing in config_dev.yml / config_test.yml, or gate the route behind an access_control rule. There is no built-in auth; it will happy render your entire schema to anyone who can reach it.

Pre-generation for static docs. If the bundle exposes a console command (check Command/), wire it into your build/deploy to emit HTML into a docs/ artifact for Confluence/staging. If no command exists, a small controller action that renders the bundle's Twig templates once and writes to disk is a common workaround.

Entity filtering. Configure which entity manager or namespaces are included via the bundle config (inspect Configuration.php for the exact key — likely something like wizad_doctrine_doc.entities or a manager selector). This matters on large apps where a single manager holds 300+ entities.

Template override. Copy the bundle's Resources/views/* into app/Resources/WizadDoctrineDocBundle/views/ (or templates/bundles/... on Symfony 4+) to rebrand the output or add columns. Twig bundle inheritance resolves the override automatically — no bundle class needed.

Pair with existing tooling. Use it as a "quick look" layer next to doctrine:mapping:info and doctrine:schema:validate; it complements rather than replaces them.

Gotchas and Tips

• Stale by age. Last meaningful activity is Symfony 2/3-era. On Symfony 5+ expect ClassNotFoundException for removed APIs (ContainerAwareCommand, @Route annotation loader changes). Patch by forking or shimming; do not expect upstream fixes.
• Only 14 stars, zero dependents. No community, no issue triage. Budget time to read the source — treat Configuration.php, the controller, and the Twig views as the actual documentation.
• Doctrine version coupling. It parses ClassMetadata; Doctrine ORM 2.x → 3.x changed metadata APIs (e.g. typed collections, attribute mapping), so relation arrows can be wrong or the page can fatal. Pin Doctrine in a sandbox if you must run it.
• No auth, exposes internals. Never mount the route in prod without a firewall. Schema leak = information disclosure (table names, column types, foreign keys).
• Proxy / lazy-loading entities can appear with mangled names if the metadata factory hasn't been warmed. Run cache:clear and, if needed, doctrine:cache:clear-metadata before browsing.
• Large schemas render slowly. The UI builds the full graph in one request; on 200+ entities you'll hit memory/time limits. Limit to one entity manager via config, or raise memory_limit for the dev environment only.
• Extension points are Twig templates + config, not services. If you need custom behavior (e.g. annotating fields with business meaning), override the controller in your own bundle by aliasing the route and copying the render logic — safer than monkeypatching vendor code.
• Debug path. If the page is blank, check that your entities are actually discovered: doctrine:mapping:info should list them. A blank doc page almost always means an empty metadata collection, not a bundle bug.