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Vitruvia is a small, dependency-free PHP framework for building simple web apps and JSON APIs. If you know Express.js, you already know Vitruvia: app.get/post/put/patch/delete, chainable res.status().json()/send(), req.params/query/body, and middleware via app.use((req, res, next) => ...).

Installation

Requires PHP 8.0 or later.

Getting started

Unlike Node, PHP handles one request per process — there's no persistent socket to bind. run() (aliased as listen() for familiarity) resolves the current request and returns; a web server (or php -S) is what invokes your entry script per request.

Routing

$app exposes get(), post(), put(), patch() and delete(), each taking a path and one or more handlers function ($req, $res, $next):

Handlers can also be [ControllerClass::class, "method"] callables:

Unmatched routes get a 404 response rendering views/_404.php.

Middleware

app->use() registers global middleware that runs before every route, in registration order. Call $next() to continue the chain:

A route can also take multiple handlers — each one after the first acts as route-specific middleware:

If a handler throws, Vitruvia catches it and responds with a JSON 500 (as long as nothing was sent yet) instead of a raw PHP error.

The request object

• $req->method — HTTP method (GET, POST, ...)
• $req->path — request path, without the query string
• $req->params — route params captured from :name-style segments
• $req->query — parsed $_GET
• $req->body — JSON body when present, otherwise $_POST
• $req->headers — request headers

The response object

• $res->status($code) — set the status code, chainable
• $res->set($header, $value) — set a header, chainable
• $res->send($body = "") — write a raw body and end the response
• $res->json($data) — write JSON and end the response
• $res->render($view, $locals = [], $layoutParams = []) — render a view inside views/layouts/base.php and end the response
• $res->redirect($url, $status = 302) — send a redirect
• $res->end() — end the response with whatever was set, no body

Views and layouts

$res->render($view, $locals, $layoutParams) renders views/{$view}.php wrapped in views/layouts/base.php:

• $locals are extracted as local PHP variables available inside the view file (e.g. $name becomes ``).
• $layoutParams values replace {key} placeholders inside the layout (e.g. {title}, {navbar}).
• The layout must contain a {{content}} placeholder marking where the view is injected.

Models

Extend Vitruvia\Core\Models\Model and declare typed properties plus a rules() method describing validation constraints:

Supported rules: RULE_REQUIRED, RULE_MIN, RULE_MAX, RULE_MATCH, RULE_BIT.

Example app

A runnable example lives in examples/. Serve it with PHP's built-in server:

Then visit http://localhost:8000/, http://localhost:8000/hello/Ada, http://localhost:8000/api/contact?name=Ada, or POST to http://localhost:8000/api/getInfoLibs.

License

Released under the MIT License.