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SKIM Framework

A modern, fast PHP 8.5+ micro-framework. Zero magic, PSR-style casing (PascalCase classes, camelCase methods), Docker-ready.

Requirements

• PHP 8.5+
• Composer 2
• Docker + Docker Compose (recommended)

Quick start

Project structure

Configuration

Two sources of config, one priority order

Important: OS environment variables take priority over .env.
This means values set in docker-compose.yml environment: block or passed by Kubernetes/CI will override whatever is in .env. The .env file is the fallback for when no OS variable is set — i.e., plain local dev without Docker.

Compiled Cache (Production)

For maximum performance in production, pre-compile config and env into OPcache-friendly PHP arrays:

This generates storage/cache/{env,config,extensions}.php — pure return [...] files that bypass all parsing overhead on every request. In development (APP_DEBUG=true), the framework automatically falls back to raw parsing when source files change.

Config files

All config is plain PHP arrays — no YAML, no INI. IDE autocomplete works out of the box.

APP_KEY

32-byte secret for signing cookies and encrypting session data. Generate with:

Routing

Database

Raw queries with query_gen

Active Record

Multiple DB connections

The alt connection ships as an example of a secondary database kept separate from the primary transactional DB — so slow queries cannot block the main application.

Cache

Drivers: redis (primary), file (fallback), array (tests).
If Redis is unreachable, the cache silently falls back to the file driver.

Views

Pure PHP templates — no Twig, no Blade.

Middleware

Built-in: cors, RateLimit, ToolbarMiddleware (injects debug toolbar in HTML responses when APP_DEBUG=true).

CLI commands

Agent-friendly CLI output

Use --agent when an LLM agent, shell script, or parser needs concise output:

--agent implies --quiet and --no-ansi, disables the interactive help menu, removes the banner and timing footer, and prints help / list as tab-separated rows: command<TAB>usage<TAB>description. Unknown commands and uncaught command errors are reported as one-line tab-separated messages on STDERR.

Docs commands (dev only — disabled in production)

llm.md is committed to the repo root — paste it into any LLM when no tooling is available.

Use --source and --output for isolated documentation builds without overwriting the root docs files:

With --output, the generator writes llm.json, llm.md, and all generated *.mdx files directly into that directory. If multiple extracted classes share the same class name, MDX filenames include the source filename to avoid overwrites.

Write your own command

Testing

Tests use SQLite :memory: for DB and array driver for cache — no real services needed.

Docker services

MCP server

SKIM ships a stdio MCP server so tool-capable LLMs (Claude Code, Cursor) can query the framework's @ai.* annotations directly.

Wire into Claude Code

Wire into Cursor

Or install the npm wrapper for registry-based clients:

Available MCP tools

Pre-commit hook (recommended)

Catch annotation regressions before they reach CI:

Key design decisions

• Conventional PHP casing — PascalCase classes, camelCase methods, UPPER_SNAKE constants. HomeController, not home_controller.
• No template engines — raw PHP with opcache is ~3x faster than Twig/Blade; real stack traces.
• Static facades (Db::, Cache::, Log::) — each has reset() and setDriver() for test isolation.
• Lazy connections — DB and Redis are not opened until the first actual query.
• Fail-open cache — Redis failure falls back to file driver silently; app keeps running.
• PHP arrays for config — no YAML/INI parser, IDE autocomplete works natively.
• strict_types=1 everywhere — no implicit type coercion.