enlivenapp/flight-settings

Database-backed key-value settings for FlightPHP, ported from CodeIgniter Settings

0.2.1 2026-05-06 00:21 UTC

Requires

• php: >=8.1
• enlivenapp/flight-school: ^0.3
• enlivenapp/migrations: *
• flightphp/active-record: *
• flightphp/core: ^3.0

MIT

• enlivenapp

README

flight-settings

I noticed folks downloading some of these packages. I'm super grateful, Thank You! I would like to let folks know until this notice disappears I'm doing a lot of breaking changes without worrying about them. Once versions are up around 0.5.x things should settle down.

A settings store for FlightPHP, built as a Flight School plugin. Values live in the database, get cached for the request, and keep their PHP types — write an int, read an int back.

What you get

• Simple get() / set() / forget() API on Flight::settings().
• Keys like 'Site.name' or 'Auth.allowRegistration', grouped by the part preceeding the dot.
• Per-user, per-tenant, or any other scope — pass a context string.
• One query per scope per request. Everything after that comes from memory.

Requirements

• PHP 8.1+
• flightphp/core ^3.0
• enlivenapp/flight-school ^0.2
• enlivenapp/migrations
• flightphp/active-record

Install

composer require enlivenapp/flight-settings

Enable it in app/config/config.php:

'plugins' => [
    'enlivenapp/flight-settings' => [
        'enabled'  => true,
        'priority' => 20,
    ],
],

That's it. On the next page load, enlivenapp/migrations creates the settings table and seeds CMS.siteName and CMS.siteByline as baseline rows.

Flight School reads this package's src/Config/Config.php as a returned array and stores it on $app under enlivenapp.flight-settings. That file currently returns 'routePrepend' => null, so the package does not register a public route prefix.

Quick start

$settings = Flight::settings();

$name = $settings->get('CMS.siteName'); //null
$name = $settings->get('CMS.siteByline'); //null

$settings->set('CMS.siteName', 'My App');
$settings->set('CMS.siteByline', 'Do Great Things!');

$name = $settings->get('CMS.siteName'); // 'My App'
$name = $settings->get('CMS.siteByline'); // Do Great Things!

get() returns null when the key isn't in the database.

Keys

Dot notation: the part before the dot is the group, the part after is the property. Both are required — a key without a dot throws InvalidArgumentException.

$settings->get('Auth.allowRegistration'); // group = Auth, property = allowRegistration
$settings->get('Mail.fromAddress');

Contexts

A context lets the same setting hold different values for different things. You pick any string that identifies what the setting belongs to, and pass it as the context argument. Examples of what a context could be:

• A user ID → this setting belongs to user 42
• A site code (if one app serves multiple sites) → this setting is for site westcoast
• A customer or organization ID → this setting belongs to ACME Corp
• A language code → this setting is for the Spanish version

Every row in the settings table has an optional context column. Writing with a context ties the row to that string; reading with the same string returns that row. Reading with no context returns the general (site-wide) row.

$settings->set('User.theme', 'dark', context: (string) $userId);
$settings->get('User.theme', context: (string) $userId);
$settings->forget('User.theme', context: (string) $userId);

get() with a context returns only that context's row, or null if there isn't one.

Types

A database column doesn't remember PHP types. Save true and you usually read back "1". Save 20 and you read back "20". This plugin records the type next to the value so the cast is done for you on read — what you put in is what you get back.

$settings->set('Site.itemsPerPage', 20);
$settings->get('Site.itemsPerPage'); // 20 — integer, not "20"

$settings->set('Auth.allowRegistration', true);
$settings->get('Auth.allowRegistration'); // true — boolean, not "1"

Supported: string, integer, double (float), boolean, array, object, NULL. Arrays and objects are stored via PHP's serialize() and restored with unserialize() — so you can stash small structured values, just don't treat it like a document store.

API

All methods on Flight::settings():

Method	Signature	What it does
get	get(string $key, ?string $context = null): mixed	Read. Returns null if not in the database.
set	set(string $key, mixed $value = null, ?string $context = null): void	Write. Cache updates immediately.
has	has(string $key, ?string $context = null): bool	Does a database row exist?
forget	forget(string $key, ?string $context = null): void	Delete one row.

Schema

The migration creates a settings table:

Column	Type	Notes
id	int	Primary key
class	varchar(255)	Part before the dot
key	varchar(255)	Part after the dot
value	text, nullable	Serialized value
type	varchar(31)	PHP type, used for cast-back
context	varchar(255), nullable	Scope string; NULL = general
created_at	datetime, nullable
updated_at	datetime, nullable

Composite index on (class, key, context).

License

MIT — see LICENSE.