This is a project scaffolding package for Craft CMS 3, 4 & 5 plugin development.

Read the A Craft CMS Plugin Local Development Environment article for full details on this project.

It gives you the following out of the box:

• Triple installs of both Craft CMS ^3.0.0, Craft CMS ^4.0.0, and Craft CMS ^5.0.0 running simultaneously
• craftcms/redactor plugin is installed
• craftcms/commerce plugin is installed
• A PHP 8.x environment with Imagick and other needed extensions pre-installed
• Code quality tools like rector, phpstan, and ecs are all baked in
• The Codeception PHP testing framework is installed and available for running tests
• A prefab database seed for both MySQL and Postgres databases
• The ability to switch between MySQL and Postgres easily
• A separate test database available for use during Codeception testing
• Dual production/debug Docker containers for PHP, for improved performance while also supporting XDebug
• Multiple sites for testing
• Prefab content with a "blog" channel for testing

This project package works exactly the way Pixel & Tonic's craftcms/craft package works; you create a new project via Composer:

composer create-project nystudio107/plugindev --no-install

This will create a project named plugindev which is a turnkey Craft CMS install for developing plugins.

We use --no-install so that the composer packages for the root project are not installed.

It works this way so that you can take the basic scaffolding, and then modify it as you see fit.

You'll need Docker desktop for your platform installed to run the project in local development

We also highly recommend that you use OrbStack if you're running MacOS; it's a drop-in replacement for Docker Desktop that is significantly faster and more reliable.

• Craft CMS 3 runs out of the cms_v3/ directory available at http://plugindev.local:8003 with OrbStack (http://localhost:8003 with Docker Desktop)

• Craft CMS 4 runs out of the cms_v4/ directory available at http://plugindev.local:8004 with OrbStack (http://localhost:8004 with Docker Desktop)

• Craft CMS 5 runs out of the cms_v5/ directory available at http://plugindev.local:8005 with OrbStack (http://localhost:8005 with Docker Desktop)

Each version of Craft CMS runs in separate Docker containers, and uses a separate database running out of the database containers (MySQL and Postgres).

Composer will have already created a .env file in the cms_v3/, cms_v4 & cms_v5/ directories, based off of the respective example.env files.

To set up your local dev environment, follow these steps:

• Edit the cms_v3/composer.json file and change the line "url": "/Users/andrew/webdev/craft_v3/*", in repositories to point to your local plugin Git repositories for Craft CMS 3
• Edit the cms_v4/composer.json file and change the line "url": "/Users/andrew/webdev/craft_v4/*", in repositories to point to your local plugin Git repositories for Craft CMS 4
• Edit the cms_v5/composer.json file and change the line "url": "/Users/andrew/webdev/craft_v5/*", in repositories to point to your local plugin Git repositories for Craft CMS 5
• Edit the docker-composer.yaml file and change the line - /Users/andrew/webdev/craft_v3:/Users/andrew/webdev/craft_v3 to point to your local Craft CMS 3 plugin Git repositories
• Edit the docker-composer.yaml file and change the line - /Users/andrew/webdev/craft_v4:/Users/andrew/webdev/craft_v4 to point to your local Craft CMS 4 plugin Git repositories
• Edit the docker-composer.yaml file and change the line - /Users/andrew/webdev/craft_v5:/Users/andrew/webdev/craft_v5 to point to your local Craft CMS 4 plugin Git repositories

To make working on plugins from multiple versions of Craft CMS easier, clone each of your plugin repositories down to the appropriate separate directories: craft_v3, craft_v4, and craft_v5.

These are two separate local repositories from the same remote git origin repository.

The path repositories in your respective composer.json files will cause Composer to install your plugins locally, rather than via Packagist, creating a symlink to the directories mentioned above.

This allows you to have all the repositories in the craft_v3 directory set to your Craft CMS 3 compatible branch, all the repositories in the craft_v4 directory set to your Craft CMS 4 compatible branch, and all the repositories in the craft_v5 directory set to your Craft CMS 4 compatible branch.

This makes working with multiple versions of your plugins for multiple versions of Craft CMS much easier.

Each directory will always have their branches set appropriately, and you can have separate Git Flow settings via Git Tower or other clients for each.

Start up the plugindev environment by typing make dev in a terminal window (the first build will be somewhat lengthy).

To stop the plugindev environment, type Control-C in the terminal window you used to start it, which terminates the Docker containers.

N.B.: Since the containers need to be built, and Composer needs to install all of the packages, the initial make dev can take some time. So before you attempt to load it in your web browser, wait until you see:

plugindev-php_v3-1         | [09-Mar-2022 04:05:33] NOTICE: fpm is running, pid 8
plugindev-php_v3-1         | [09-Mar-2022 04:05:33] NOTICE: ready to handle connections

...and:

plugindev-php_v4-1         | [09-Mar-2022 04:05:33] NOTICE: fpm is running, pid 8
plugindev-php_v4-1         | [09-Mar-2022 04:05:33] NOTICE: ready to handle connections

...and:

plugindev-php_v5-1         | [09-Mar-2022 04:05:33] NOTICE: fpm is running, pid 8
plugindev-php_v5-1         | [09-Mar-2022 04:05:33] NOTICE: ready to handle connections

• Navigate to http://plugindev.local:8003 to use the Craft CMS 3 site
• Navigate to http://plugindev.local:8004 to use the Craft CMS 4 site
• Navigate to http://plugindev.local:8004 to use the Craft CMS 5 site

The default login for all plugindev sites is:

User: admin
Password: password

You should open the craft_v3, craft_v4, and craft_v5 subdirectories in separate windows in your code editor of choice, rather than opening up the entire plugindev project in a single window.

This allows your editor to index each Craft CMS install separately for things like code completion, and it also allows you to have separate PHP language level inspection settings (PHP 7.1 for Craft CMS 3, PHP 8 for Craft CMS 4, PHP 8.2 for Craft CMS 5).

You can also set up IDEs like PhpStorm to use the PHP interpreter inside the appropriate Docker container (plugindev_php_xdebug_v3 for Craft CMS 3, plugindev_php_xdebug_v4 for Craft CMS 4, and plugindev_php_xdebug_v5 for Craft CMS 5), and set up path mappings for XDebug.

Remember to enable the Symfony plugin if you're using PhpStorm for each project.

plugindev intentionally uses non-standard ports so you can run it side-by-side with another local dev environment, without risk of port conflicts.

The following ports are exposed on localhost while plugindev is running (these need to not be in use prior to starting up plugindev):

• 8003 - The Craft CMS 3 website
• 8004 - The Craft CMS 4 website
• 8005 - The Craft CMS 5 website
• 54320 - The Postgres database server
• 33060 - The MySQL database server

The following databases are available in both the MySQL and Postgres database containers:

• project_v3 - the database for Craft CMS 3. User: project Password: project
• project_v4 - the database for Craft CMS 4. User: project Password: project
• project_v5 - the database for Craft CMS 5. User: project Password: project
• test - an entirely empty database that can be used for testing. User: project Password: project

Internally, there are also containers that run the Craft CMS queue automatically, and a Redis container for caching.

This project uses Docker to shrink-wrap the devops it needs to run around the project.

To make using it easier, we're using a Makefile and the built-in make utility to create a CLI API both for the project as a whole, and for the individual Craft CMS 3 & Craft CMS 4 site.

You can read more about it in the Using Make & Makefiles to Automate your Frontend Workflow article.

You can run the following from terminal in the root project directory:

• make dev - starts up the local dev server listening on http://plugindev.local:8003/, http://plugindev.local:8004/ & http://plugindev.local:8005/
• make clean - removes the composer.lock and the entire vendor/ directory from the cms_v3, cms_v4 & cms_v5 projects
• make nuke - restarts the project from scratch by running make clean (above), then shuts down the Docker containers, removes any mounted volumes (including the database), and then rebuilds the containers from scratch

composer craft ecs mysql phpstan postgres rector ssh

You can run the following from terminal in the cms_v3 or cms_v4 CMS directories:

• make composer xxx - runs the composer command passed in, e.g. make composer install in the php container
• make craft xxx - runs the craft console command passed in, e.g.: make craft project-config/apply in the php container
• make codecept xxx - runs the Codeception testing framework with the passed in commands, e.g.: make codecept run -c ./vendor/putyourlightson/craft-blitz in the php container
• make ecs xxx - runs Easy Coding Standard using the Craft CMS ECS config, with the passed in path, e.g.: make ecs check vendor/nystudio107/craft-seomatic/src. To automatically fix, add the --fix flag, e.g.: make -- ecs check vendor/nystudio107/craft-seomatic/src --fix. Additional settings are available in the ecs.php file
• make mysql - switches the project to use the MySQL database container; just reload the browser
• make phpstan xxx - runs PHPStan using the Craft CMS PHPStan config, with the passed in path, e.g.: make phpstan analyze vendor/nystudio107/craft-seomatic/src or make -- phpstan analyze -c vendor/nystudio107/craft-seomatic/phpstan.neon. Additional settings are available in the phpstan.neon file
• make postgres - switches the project to use the Postgres database container; just reload the browser
• make rector xxx - runs Rector using the Craft CMS Rector config, with the passed in path, e.g.: make rector process vendor/nystudio107/craft-seomatic/src. Additional settings are available in the rector.php file
• make ssh - opens up a Unix shell inside the PHP container for the project

Tip: If you try a command like make craft project-config/apply --force you’ll see an error, because the shell thinks the --force flag should be applied to the make command. To side-step this, use the -- (double-dash) to disable further option processing, like this: make -- craft project-config/apply --force

The plugindev environment supports both MySQL and Postgres out of the box. It spins up a container for each database, and seeds them with a starter db.

To use MySQL (the default) just type:

make mysql

To use Postgres just type:

make postgres

...and then just reload the page.

This is great for ensuring your db queries work properly on both MySQL and Postgres, without having to set up two separate environments.

IF you use OrbStack as a faster, more efficient replacement for Docker Desktop on the Mac, you can take advantage of some local domain aliases:

• plugindev.local:8003, plugindev.local:8004 & plugindev.local:8005 - domain aliases for the respective web hosts
• mysql.plugindev.local - local domain alias for the MySQL database container
• postgres.plugindev.local - local domain alias for the Postgres database container

By default, all of your requests will be routed through the production PHP container, for speedy local development and testing.

However, there is a second Xdebug PHP container that's always running too, for the time that you need to use Xdebug on the really tough problems.

What happens is a request comes in, Nginx looks to see if there's an XDEBUG_SESSION cookie set. If there's no cookie, it routes the request to the regular php container.

If however the XDEBUG_SESSION cookie is set (with any value), it routes the request to the php_xdebug container.

You can set this cookie with a browser extension, your IDE, or via a number of other methods. Here is the Xdebug Helper browser extension for your favorite browsers: Chrome - Firefox - Safari

You can read more about it in the An Annotated Docker Config for Frontend Web Development article.

To use Xdebug with VSCode install the PHP Debug extension and use the following configuration in your .vscode/launch.json:

{
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            "name": "Listen for Xdebug",
            "type": "php",
            "request": "launch",
            "port": 9003,
            "log": true,
            "externalConsole": false,
            "pathMappings": {
                "/var/www/project/cms": "${workspaceRoot}/cms"
            },
            "ignore": ["**/vendor/**/*.php"]
        }
    ]
}

Below is the entire intact, unmodified README.md from Pixel & Tonic's craftcms/craft:

.....

Craft is a flexible and scalable CMS for creating bespoke digital experiences on the web and beyond.

It features:

• An intuitive Control Panel for administration tasks and content creation.
• A clean-slate approach to content modeling and front-end development.
• A built-in Plugin Store with hundreds of free and commercial plugins.
• A robust framework for module and plugin development.

Learn more about it at craftcms.com.

Craft is written in PHP (7+), and built on the Yii 2 framework. It can connect to MySQL (5.5+) and PostgreSQL (9.5+) for content storage.

See the following documentation pages for help installing Craft 3:

• Server Requirements
• Installation Instructions
• Upgrading from Craft 2

• Documentation – Read the official docs.
• Guides – Follow along with the official guides.
• #craftcms – See the latest tweets about Craft.
• Discord – Meet the community.
• Stack Exchange – Get help and help others.
• CraftQuest – Watch unlimited video lessons and courses.
• Craft Link List – Stay in-the-know.
• nystudio107 Blog – Learn Craft and modern web development.