Developer Guides
Build a complete Phalcon Kit application one workflow at a time. These guides document the latest stable phalcon-kit/core release; Composer metadata is the authority for runtime and dependency requirements.
New to Phalcon Kit?
Follow the First API track in order. It starts with a runnable app and ends with a database-backed, permission-aware REST resource.
Choose A Learning Track
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First API
Install the application, learn its structure, and build a complete resource.
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Database-First Development
Turn migrations into typed models, relationships, validation, and API data.
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Secure APIs
Configure identity, roles, feature permissions, and row-level conditions.
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Run And Operate
Serve HTTP, run CLI and WebSocket processes, and validate runtime alignment.
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Migrate
Move a legacy package or REST resource onto current namespaces and contracts.
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Contribute
Run the project gates, understand test layers, and prepare releases.
Core Concepts
Use these guides as the durable reference while building:
| Topic | What it answers |
|---|---|
| Architecture | Where should bootstrap, config, generated code, models, controllers, and tasks live? |
| Configuration | How do modules, providers, aliases, events, identity, and permissions fit together? |
| Database And Scaffolding | Which files are generated, which files are app-owned, and how do schema changes flow into code? |
| Models And Eager Loading | How do relationships, nested saves, eager loading, behaviors, snapshots, and cache invalidation work? |
| REST APIs | How are fields, filters, joins, counts, transformers, and response envelopes configured? |
| Identity And Permissions | How are feature access, roles, attributes, behaviors, and row-level policy enforced? |
Examples And Answers
- Developer Cookbook contains focused copy-and-adapt recipes for common application tasks.
- Troubleshooting starts from symptoms such as boot failures, missing services, routing errors, migration drift, and unexpected REST output.
- API Reference is generated from the current source and is useful when you know the class or method name.
Latest-Version Policy
This documentation is intentionally rolling:
- it supports the latest stable Phalcon Kit release;
- it does not maintain parallel versioned sites;
- evergreen examples use unconstrained install commands;
- exact versions belong in Composer metadata, release notes, and compatibility investigations where the number itself matters.
Phalcon Kit extends Phalcon instead of replacing it. Use the latest Phalcon documentation for native framework behavior. Phalcon Kit is independently maintained and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the official Phalcon project.
AI-Assisted Development
Read AI-Assisted Development for bundled skill paths, safe usage, and coverage notes. Human-facing guides explain the concepts; agent references under resources/skills/ add stricter operational instructions. Both surfaces should describe the same public conventions.