README

The core package for Vela.build — a high-performance, standards-compliant, AI-friendly, extensible CMS built on Laravel.

About

This is the core package — it contains all the CMS logic, models, controllers, AI services, and admin panel. It is installed into Laravel projects as a Composer dependency.

Want to get started quickly? Use the Vela CMS starter project instead — it gives you a pre-configured Laravel application with Vela Core already wired up. Clone it once, customise it, and receive core updates via composer update.

Vela Core provides a full-featured content management system, page builder, and admin panel as a Laravel package. It's designed from the ground up to integrate AI capabilities natively — not as an afterthought — while remaining fast, extensible, and standards-compliant.

Features

Page Builder — Flexible block-based page builder with rows, blocks, widgets, and templates
AI-Native — Built-in support for OpenAI, Claude, and Gemini for content generation, image generation, and AI-assisted workflows
Admin Panel — Complete admin interface with authentication, roles, permissions, and 2FA
Media Management — Integrated media library with image optimization and cache management (via Spatie Media Library)
Multilingual — Full i18n support with 10 languages out of the box and translation management tools
SEO & Analytics — Google Analytics, Search Console, and PageSpeed Insights integration
Static Site Generation — Generate static HTML and serve cached pages without booting Laravel
Extensible Registries — Register custom blocks, menus, templates, widgets, and tools via the Vela facade
Cloudflare Integration — Automatic cache purging and CDN management
PWA Support — Icon generation and progressive web app configuration
Figma Export — Design-to-code pipeline with Figma integration
Queue-Ready — 14 async jobs for AI generation, content processing, translations, and more
Design System — Project-level /designsystem/ folder (git-tracked) holding brand docs, colour palette, and font choices. The admin block editor uses the palette/fonts as presets; the AI chatbot browses it on demand via design_system_* tools instead of getting the whole thing dumped into every prompt. Manage under Settings → Design System; also supports ZIP upload or URL import (e.g. from a Claude-generated design).

Requirements

PHP 8.1+
Laravel 10 or 11

Installation

composer require velabuild/core

The package auto-discovers its service provider and facade. Run the install command to publish assets and run migrations:

php artisan vela:install

Configuration

Publish the configuration file:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="VelaBuild\Core\VelaServiceProvider" --tag="config"

Configuration options include route prefixes, middleware stacks, AI provider settings, template selection, and multilingual setup. See the published config files for full details.

Static File Serving

Vela can generate pre-rendered HTML for public pages via php artisan vela:generate-static. When a matching static file exists, the page is served directly without booting Laravel — dramatically reducing response times and server load.

If you're using the CMS starter project, this is already configured in public/index.php. If you're integrating Vela Core into an existing Laravel app, add the static file front-controller to the top of your public/index.php (before the Laravel bootstrap). It works by:

Reading VELA_CACHE from .env directly (lightweight file parse, no framework needed)
Mapping GET request URIs to pre-rendered HTML files in resources/static/
Serving the static file with cache headers and exiting — Laravel never boots
Falling through to normal Laravel bootstrap when no static file matches

Admin, auth, and API routes are automatically excluded. Static files are regenerated on content changes or manually via php artisan vela:generate-static. Set VELA_CACHE=false in .env to disable.

See the CMS starter's public/index.php for the reference implementation.

Usage

Writing a plugin

Vela plugins are Laravel packages that register with Vela's extension points (blocks, menus, templates, widgets, tools). The canonical walkthrough — including the service-provider template, the vela-page-editor-blocks JS extension point, permission seeding, and the no-DB safety rules — lives in docs/plugins.md.

The reference implementation is velabuild/snippets — a real, small plugin that adds a Snippets admin page + a Snippet Page Builder block. Read its SnippetsServiceProvider alongside the plugin doc.

Registering a block (quick example)

use VelaBuild\Core\Vela;

$vela = $this->app->make(Vela::class);

$vela->registerBlock('my-block', [
    'label'  => 'My Block',
    'icon'   => 'fas fa-cube',
    'view'   => 'my-namespace::public.block',    // public render
    'editor' => 'my-namespace::admin.block-form', // admin editor
    'defaults' => ['content' => [], 'settings' => []],
]);

Registering a template

$vela->registerTemplate('my-template', [
    'label' => 'My Template',
    'path'  => __DIR__.'/resources/views/templates/my-template',
]);

Artisan Commands

Vela ships with CLI commands for common tasks:

Command	Description
`vela:install`	Initial setup and migration
`vela:app-init`	Initialize application configuration
`vela:app-build`	Build application assets
`vela:create-content`	Scaffold new content types
`vela:import-content`	Import content from external sources
`vela:generate-image`	AI image generation
`vela:ai-wizard`	Interactive AI content assistant
`vela:generate-static`	Generate static site files
`vela:theme-check`	Validate theme configuration
`vela:cleanup-image-cache`	Purge optimized image cache

Run php artisan list vela for the full list.

Testing

composer test

Or directly with PHPUnit:

vendor/bin/phpunit

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read our Contributor License Agreement before submitting a pull request.

Fork the repository
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/my-feature)
Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add my feature')
Push to the branch (git push origin feature/my-feature)
Open a pull request

By submitting a pull request, you agree to the terms of our CLA.

Security

If you discover a security vulnerability, please email m@awcode.com instead of opening a public issue.

License

Vela Core is open-source software licensed under the MIT License.

velabuild / core

Maintainers

Package info

Statistics

Security

README

About

Features

Requirements

Installation

Configuration

Static File Serving

Usage

Writing a plugin

Registering a block (quick example)

Registering a template

Artisan Commands

Testing

Contributing

Security

License

Links