README

Laravel 13 application skeleton, optimized for PHP 8.5

This is the app skeleton for Fledge, a drop-in replacement for Laravel's framework that uses PHP 8.5's native features for ~17% better performance.

Forked from laravel/laravel and rebased onto a clean history.

Quick Start

The skeleton is distributed via Git for now (not yet on Packagist), so clone it directly:

git clone https://github.com/webpatser/fledge my-app
cd my-app
composer install
cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate
php artisan serve

After install, verify you are running Fledge and not stock Laravel:

bash vendor/webpatser/fledge-framework/bin/verify-fledge-install.sh
# OK   running Fledge framework v13.7.0.4

What You Get

A standard Laravel 13 application that uses webpatser/fledge-framework instead of laravel/framework. Everything works the same: same Artisan commands, same directory structure, same ecosystem compatibility. Just faster.

Out of the box, Fledge includes:

Non-blocking I/O via fledge-fiber: one Fiber-based async runtime covering Redis (cache, session, queue, locks), MySQL/MariaDB/PostgreSQL drivers, HTTP client and server, DNS resolution, and concurrency primitives. Previously split across fledge-fiber-database, -redis, and -http, now consolidated into a single package.
Concurrent Middleware: run independent middleware in parallel using fibers via ConcurrentMiddlewareGroup.
Fiber Queue Worker via torque: concurrent job processing, a Horizon replacement.

Ecosystem

fledge (this skeleton)
  └─ requires webpatser/fledge-framework   Laravel 13 fork, PHP 8.5 optimized
      └─ requires webpatser/fledge-fiber   Fiber async: Redis, DB, HTTP, DNS, primitives

Optional companions:
  webpatser/torque                         Fiber queue worker (Horizon alternative)
  webpatser/laravel-fiber                  Same FiberDriver, standalone for Laravel 11/12/13

Caveats

Things worth knowing before going to production with Fledge:

Redis Cluster is supported by fledge-fiber (v13.7.0.1+) via Laravel's standard clusters.* config, with full API parity against PhpRedisClusterConnection / PredisClusterConnection. Multi-key commands must share a hash tag ({tag}.key), SELECT to a non-zero database is rejected, MULTI/EXEC stays within one slot, and pipelines route per-command (no atomicity across slots). Standalone and Sentinel Redis work too.
PHP 8.5 hosting was released in November 2025. Availability across managed hosts (Forge, Vapor, Ploi, Laravel Cloud) is still rolling out, check your host before committing.
Active branch is fledge-13, not main. Released tags follow v13.X.Y.N where N is the Fledge patch counter on top of Laravel X.Y.0.

Fiber Database Drivers

Set DB_CONNECTION=fledge-mysql in .env to use the non-blocking MySQL driver. Queries suspend the current Fiber while waiting for I/O, allowing other Fibers to progress concurrently.

Run multiple queries in parallel:

use Fledge\Fiber\Database\FiberDB;

[$users, $posts, $count] = FiberDB::concurrent(
    fn() => User::where('active', true)->get(),
    fn() => Post::latest()->limit(10)->get(),
    fn() => Comment::where('approved', false)->count(),
);

Available drivers: fledge-mysql, fledge-mariadb, fledge-pgsql. Connection config is preconfigured in config/database.php.

Concurrent Middleware

Run independent middleware in parallel using fibers. Middleware that implement ConcurrentMiddleware can be grouped and executed concurrently, ideal for middleware that perform independent I/O like Redis lookups, API key validation, or rate limit checks.

// In your Kernel
protected $concurrentMiddleware = [
    'io-checks' => [
        ValidateApiKey::class,      // Redis lookup
        CheckRateLimit::class,      // Redis lookup
        LoadSubscriptionTier::class // Redis lookup
    ],
];

protected $middlewareGroups = [
    'api' => [
        'concurrent:io-checks',    // 3 Redis calls in ~5ms instead of ~15ms
        SubstituteBindings::class,
    ],
];

Each middleware implements before(Request): Request|Response and after(Request, Response): Response. The group runs all before() methods concurrently via the FiberDriver, merges request modifications, continues down the pipeline, then runs all after() methods concurrently.

See fledge-framework for details on what's optimized and why.

Switching an Existing Laravel 13 Project

You don't need this skeleton. Swap the framework in your existing project by requiring webpatser/fledge-framework directly:

composer require "webpatser/fledge-framework:^13.7" -W

This installs Fledge and removes vendor/laravel/framework via the replace mechanism. Don't run composer require "laravel/framework:...", that pulls in upstream Laravel even if Fledge is registered as a repository. See the framework README for the resolver detail.

Verify the switch:

bash vendor/webpatser/fledge-framework/bin/verify-fledge-install.sh

To switch back to upstream Laravel:

composer remove webpatser/fledge-framework
composer require "laravel/framework:^13.0" -W

Requirements

PHP 8.5+
intl extension
Composer 2.x
PHPUnit 11, 12, or 13 (matches laravel/framework support)

Credits

Built on Laravel by Taylor Otwell and the Laravel community.

License

MIT

webpatser / fledge

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