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Laravel Evolver

Laravel Evolver discovers and executes deterministic, one-time application evolution actions for Laravel 12 and 13 on PHP 8.4.

Installation

Actions

Generate an action with a PHP class-style name:

The command writes a timestamped file such as 2026_08_09_123456_backfill_user_profiles.php to evolver.actions_path. The filename without .php is its stable database identity. Files are always planned in lexical filename order.

An action returns an anonymous class extending Infinity\Evolver\Contracts\Action:

The interval includes introducedIn and excludes requiredUntil. Either bound may be null. When both bounds are present, introducedIn must be earlier than requiredUntil.

Configuration

evolver.versioning.strategy accepts the VersionStrategy enum or its scalar value:

• none: resolves no application version, disables version filtering, and makes every unexecuted action applicable.
• file: reads versioning.file.path.
• config: reads versioning.config.key.
• json: reads versioning.json.path at versioning.json.key.
• git: reads the latest Git tag and removes versioning.git.strip_prefix.

Non-none strategies require valid semantic versions, including optional prerelease and build metadata, and use semantic-version comparisons. If a configured source contains no version, versioning.required determines whether planning throws or produces no applicable actions. Unreadable, malformed, or otherwise invalid sources always fail planning.

Set evolver.database.connection to a Laravel connection name to use a dedicated connection. Evolution records, their migration, and package-managed transactions share this connection; a null value uses Laravel's default connection.

Planning and status

Both commands use the same authoritative Planner and display every discovered action:

• pending: unexecuted, applicable, and selected to run.
• executed: previously committed successfully and never selected again.
• not_applicable: unexecuted but outside the selected target-version interval.

An executed action whose SHA-256 checksum changes causes planning to fail when safety.fail_on_changed_action is enabled. Dry-run performs discovery, materialization, version resolution, and Evolution reads, but never invokes actions, starts an execution transaction, or writes application/Evolution state.

Before each pending action executes, Evolver recomputes its checksum and aborts if the file has changed or disappeared since planning. This execution-time integrity check is always enabled.

API versioning

Evolver can register URL-based major API versions and manage their runtime lifecycle independently from the application version used for evolution actions. The feature is opt-in:

Routes in these files are exposed at /api/v1, /api/v2, and so on. API versions must use major identifiers such as v1; each successor must also be registered. A sunset date requires an earlier deprecation date.

Evolver loads every route file listed under evolver.api.versions; do not also register those files in Laravel's bootstrap/app.php. If all API routes are managed by Evolver, remove Laravel's default api: entry:

You may keep the api: __DIR__.'/../routes/api.php' entry when the application intentionally has additional, unversioned API routes in that file. Evolver's versioned files, such as routes/api/v1.php, must remain separate to avoid duplicate route registration.

Controllers and other route handlers may resolve the request-scoped context:

Deprecated versions emit Deprecation, Sunset, and optional successor Link headers. Sunset versions return 410 Gone; malformed and unsupported versions return stable JSON errors. Unknown routes within a supported version return a stable api_route_not_found error.

Inspect configured lifecycle states with:

The URL resolver implements ApiVersionResolver, allowing applications to replace URL negotiation later without changing the registry, lifecycle, or request-context APIs.

Deploying and transactions

Pending actions run sequentially in planned order and execution stops at the first exception. Only successful, committed executions receive an Evolution record. A unique action identity prevents duplicate records.

evolver.transactions.mode accepts:

• none: the package opens no transaction. Earlier action work and records remain after a later failure; the failed action may already have produced partial side effects.
• per_action: each action and its Evolution record share a transaction. Earlier actions remain committed; the failed action's work on Laravel's default connection rolls back.
• entire_run: every current-run action and record shares one transaction. Any failure rolls all of them back and reports no current-run action as committed.

These transaction guarantees apply only to writes using the connection selected by evolver.database.connection. Filesystem changes, network/API calls, queues, cache, mail, external services, and writes on other database connections are not rolled back. Avoid irreversible external effects when database rollback semantics are required.

Development

License

The MIT License. See LICENSE.