Citadel - Laravel Backend Boilerplate

🎯 About Citadel

Citadel is a production-ready Laravel backend boilerplate designed to accelerate your web application development. Built with Laravel 12 and modern PHP 8.2+, it provides a robust foundation with enterprise-grade features including OAuth2 authentication, role-based permissions, media management, and full-text search capabilities.

✨ Why Choose Citadel?

• ⚡ Fast Setup - Get your API up and running in minutes
• 🏗️ Production Ready - Built with scalability and security in mind
• 🔒 Enterprise Security - OAuth2, RBAC, and security best practices
• 🧪 Test Driven - Comprehensive testing suite with Pest PHP
• 🐳 Docker Ready - Complete containerization for development and deployment
• 🚀 CI/CD Included - GitLab pipeline for automated testing and deployment
• 📚 Well Documented - Extensive documentation and examples

🚀 Quick Start

Get Citadel running in 5 minutes! See QUICKSTART.md for detailed instructions.

📊 Version Information

Current version: {{ app_version() }}

• Semantic Versioning: Automated version management with CI/CD
• GitLab CI/CD: See SEMANTIC_VERSIONING.md
• GitHub Actions: See GITHUB_ACTIONS.md
• Version API: GET /api/version for version information
• Release Notes: See CHANGELOG.md for version history
• CI/CD Switcher: Use scripts/ci-switch.sh to switch between platforms

🛠️ Development Tools

Code Quality

• PHP CS Fixer (Pint): Automatic code formatting
• PHPStan with Larastan: Static analysis for Laravel
• Pest: Modern PHP testing framework
• Pre-commit hooks: Automated quality checks

Available Scripts

# Code formatting
composer run pint

# Static analysis  
composer run analyse

# Run tests
composer run test

# All quality checks
composer run quality

# Development server with hot reload
composer run dev

✨ Features

Option 1: Docker (Recommended)

git clone <repository-url> citadel
cd citadel
docker-compose up -d

# Create your first super admin user
docker-compose exec app php artisan citadel:create-super-admin \
  --email=admin@yourcompany.com \
  --password=SecurePassword123! \
  --name="Admin User"

🌐 Access: http://localhost:8000

Option 2: Traditional Setup

git clone <repository-url> citadel
cd citadel
composer install && npm install
cp .env.example .env && php artisan key:generate
php artisan migrate && php artisan passport:install

# Create your first super admin user
php artisan citadel:create-super-admin \
  --email=admin@yourcompany.com \
  --password=SecurePassword123! \
  --name="Admin User"

composer run dev

🌐 Access: http://localhost:8000

Option 3: Laravel Sail

git clone <repository-url> citadel
cd citadel
./vendor/bin/sail up -d

# Create your first super admin user
./vendor/bin/sail artisan citadel:create-super-admin \
  --email=admin@yourcompany.com \
  --password=SecurePassword123! \
  --name="Admin User"

🌐 Access: http://localhost

✨ Key Features

🔐 Authentication & Authorization

• Laravel Passport OAuth2 - Complete OAuth2 server implementation
• Role-Based Access Control - Spatie Laravel Permission with dot notation (users.*, media.*)
• Super Admin Management - Dedicated command for creating super admin users
• JWT Token Authentication - Secure API authentication
• Permission Helper Functions - Wildcard-aware permission checking

🏰 Super Admin Creation Command

Citadel includes a powerful interactive command for creating super admin users:

# Interactive mode with confirmation prompts
php artisan citadel:create-super-admin

# Direct mode with parameters
php artisan citadel:create-super-admin \
  --email=admin@example.com \
  --password=SecurePassword123! \
  --name="Super Admin"

# Docker environment
docker-compose exec app php artisan citadel:create-super-admin \
  --email=admin@example.com \
  --password=SecurePassword123! \
  --name="Super Admin"

Features:

• ✅ Interactive UI - Beautiful table formatting with confirmation prompts
• ✅ Validation - Email uniqueness and password strength validation
• ✅ Role Assignment - Automatically assigns "Super Admin" role with all permissions
• ✅ Success Feedback - Clear confirmation with user details and next steps
• ✅ Docker Compatible - Works seamlessly in containerized environments

🎯 Modern API Design

• Query Builder Integration - Spatie Laravel Query Builder for flexible API queries
• Advanced Filtering - ?filter[name]=john&sort=-created_at&include=roles
• Field Selection - ?fields[users]=id,name,email for optimized responses
• Auto-Generated Docs - Scramble for automatic OpenAPI documentation
• Consistent Responses - Standardized JSON API response format

📁 Media & Content Management

• File Upload System - Spatie Laravel Medialibrary integration
• Image Processing - Automatic optimization and thumbnail generation
• Full-Text Search - Laravel Scout with multiple drivers
• Multiple Storage - Local, S3, and cloud storage support

🧪 Developer Experience

• Pest PHP Testing - Modern testing framework with beautiful syntax
• Docker Development - One-command environment setup
• Code Quality Tools - Laravel Pint, PHPStan integration
• Hot Module Replacement - Fast development with Vite
• Redis Integration - High-performance caching and sessions

📦 Key Technologies

🏗️ Project Structure

API Controllers (Organized)

app/Http/Controllers/Api/
├── AuthController.php          # Authentication endpoints
├── UserController.php          # User management with QueryBuilder
├── MediaController.php         # File upload and management
├── SearchController.php        # Full-text search functionality
└── ApiDocumentationController.php # API documentation

Artisan Commands

app/Console/Commands/
├── SuperAdminCreation.php      # Interactive super admin creation command
└── GetRoleList.php             # Role management and statistics command

Documentation Structure

├── README.md                   # Project overview and quick start
├── QUICKSTART.md              # 5-minute setup guide
├── DOCKER.md                  # Docker development guide
├── COMMANDS.md                # Artisan commands reference
├── DEPLOYMENT.md              # Production deployment guide
├── SEMANTIC_VERSIONING.md     # Semantic versioning with GitLab CI/CD
├── GITHUB_ACTIONS.md          # GitHub Actions CI/CD setup
├── CHANGELOG.md               # Version history and changes
└── CONTRIBUTING.md            # Contribution guidelines

Configuration System

• config/citadel.php - Centralized configuration
• app/helpers.php - Helper functions with autoloading
• .env.citadel.example - Environment variable examples

🚀 CI/CD Integration

Citadel supports both GitLab CI/CD and GitHub Actions with identical functionality:

🦊 GitLab CI/CD

• Configuration: .gitlab-ci.yml
• Semantic Release: .releaserc.json
• Documentation: SEMANTIC_VERSIONING.md
• Features: Automated testing, security scans, semantic versioning, multi-environment deployment

🐙 GitHub Actions

• Configuration: .github/workflows/ci-cd.yml
• Semantic Release: .releaserc.github.json
• Documentation: GITHUB_ACTIONS.md
• Features: Automated testing, CodeQL security, semantic versioning, environment protection

🔄 Platform Switching

# Switch to GitLab CI/CD
./scripts/ci-switch.sh gitlab

# Switch to GitHub Actions
./scripts/ci-switch.sh github

# Check current status
./scripts/ci-switch.sh status

🏷️ Semantic Versioning

Both platforms use conventional commits for automatic version management:

feat: add new feature      # Minor version bump (1.0.0 → 1.1.0)
fix: resolve bug          # Patch version bump (1.0.0 → 1.0.1)  
feat!: breaking change    # Major version bump (1.0.0 → 2.0.0)

🔧 Available Commands

Super Admin Management

# Create a new super admin user (interactive)
php artisan citadel:create-super-admin

# Create super admin with parameters
php artisan citadel:create-super-admin --email=admin@example.com --password=SecurePass123! --name="Admin"

# View all available citadel commands  
php artisan list citadel

Development Commands

# Generate API documentation
php artisan scramble:generate

# Clear all caches
php artisan optimize:clear

# Run tests
./vendor/bin/pest

# Run code analysis
./vendor/bin/phpstan analyse

🤝 Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

📄 License

This project is open-sourced software licensed under the MIT license.

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Laravel Framework - The web artisans framework
• Spatie - Amazing Laravel packages
• Pest PHP - Modern testing framework
• Tailwind CSS - Utility-first CSS framework

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Laravel Framework - The web artisans framework
• Spatie - Amazing Laravel packages
• Pest PHP - Modern testing framework
• Tailwind CSS - Utility-first CSS framework