Local Development Setup

Recommended Baseline

• PHP 8.3 or newer
• Composer 2.x
• Git
• a database engine supported by the project, or SQLite for simpler setups
• Node only if your package or theme builds frontend assets locally

What a Good Local Setup Must Support

• installing the project
• running migrations and seeders
• developing package classes inside core/custom/packages
• editing Blade views and rebuilding Tailwind when needed
• testing routes, validators, APIs, and manager integrations locally before touching production

Useful Project Commands

composer install
php core/artisan migrate
php core/artisan package:create example
php core/artisan package:discover
php core/artisan cache:clear-full
php core/artisan route:list

Package Development Loop

The example-package repository is a good real-world donor for modern package structure. A typical local cycle looks like this:

php core/artisan package:installrequire evolution-cms/example-package "*"
php core/artisan package:discover
php core/artisan migrate
php core/artisan example:install-demo

When Node Is Needed

Many packages work without Node because they ship prebuilt assets. In example-package, prebuilt files live under public/assets/vendor/example. Rebuild assets only when you change package frontend code.

npm i
npm run build

For the actual package folder anatomy, continue with Project Structure and Creating an Extra.