README

Description

This collection of files makes up skeleton, a tiny "framework" which allows you to quickly develop small or large web applications.

We don't like to call it a framework, since it is much less than that.

Rationale

The reason why we created and maintain skeleton instead of using something more mainstream, is that we want something to suggest a certain structure and a way of working, but without getting in your way. skeleton will give you a lot of freedom to do things your way.

We re-use components from other projects whenever it makes sense. However, we will implement our own versions of simple components if that can avoid another dependency. We don't want another is-odd incident.

We have open-sourced skeleton, because we believe it may be of inspiration to others. We have chosen a very liberal license, so you are free to use it for any project you may have.

Installation

Install the code with composer: composer create-project tigron/skeleton
Drop the code somewhere on a webserver
Point the document root (or equivalent) to webroot/
Make sure your server sends all requests to webroot/handler.php, if your server supports .htaccess files, that should happen automatically
Create a database
Create a config/environment.php file, containing at least the DSN for your database (see below)
Run composer update
Run util/bin/skeleton migrate:up

Usage

Getting started

skeleton is well suited for use without a webserver or a web front-end if that is not your thing. Likewise, it can easily be used without a database. Simply install or remove the relevant packages at will. Only the skeleton-core package is required.

That being set, the default skeleton setup comes with a few packages already required in composer.json. Feel free to add or remove any package you don't need.

To get started, have a look at the app/admin folder. You will find an example module in module/, an example event handler in event/ and some basic templates in template/.

Packages

The skeleton project is made up of loosely coupled packages. These packages implement commonly used components, tools, scripts and anything you can think of. The rule of thumb is: if you need it twice, create a package.

An overview can be found here.

Database

As with many things in skeleton you are mostly free to do what you want. But if you want things to work automagically, we expect you to follow a few simple guidelines.

table names are always singular
every table has an id column, which is auto-incremented
references to rows in other tables are to be done with foreign keys, and will reference the id in the remote table as <table>_id.
the uuid, created, updated and archived columns are magic

Some skeleton packages will create their own tables. These tables are owned by the package. Do not add, remove or modify columns in these tables outside of the packages.

Some packages allow you to specify a table name, but most do not. If your application is already using a table with the same name as a package you want to use, you will probably need to modify your application.

Configuration and environment

Configuration is done by means of files in the config/ directory. Files are loaded in alphabetical order, with the exception of config/environment.php, which is always loaded last.

It is suggested you keep /config/environment.php out of your VCS, for example by adding it to your .gitignore file. This way, you can use it to store sensitive configuration items.

A minimal example can be seen below.

<?php
return [
    'database' => 'mysqli://username:password@localhost/database',
];

Features

Hardly any by default. Many exist as separate packages.

tigron / skeleton

Maintainers

Details