Requirements & Installation

1 · System Requirements

Memory footprint: a minimal install with OPcache enabled consumes ≈ 25 MB RAM per PHP worker.

2 · Quick Start (recommended)

composer create-project monkeyscloud/monkeyslegion-skeleton myapp
cd myapp
cp .env.example .env            # or export vars however you prefer
php vendor/bin/ml key:generate  # RSA keypair for JWT
php vendor/bin/ml serve --open  # hot-reload dev server

The skeleton pulls in every first-party package—Core, Router, HTTP, etc.—plus

resources/, config/, database/ folders laid out for you.

Browse to http://localhost:8000 and you should see “Hello MonkeysLegion!”.

3 · Installing from Scratch (manual)

If you want a bare-bones install inside an existing repository:

1. Require individual packages

composer require \
  monkeyscloud/monkeyslegion-core \
  monkeyscloud/monkeyslegion-router \
  monkeyscloud/monkeyslegion-http \
  monkeyscloud/monkeyslegion-di

2. Create a public entrypoint

   public/index.php

require_once dirname(__DIR__).'/vendor/autoload.php';

$container = (new MonkeysLegion\DI\ContainerBuilder())->build();
$router    = $container->get(MonkeysLegion\Router\Router::class);

$kernel = new MonkeysLegion\Http\MiddlewareDispatcher();
$kernel->add($router->getMiddleware());

$response = $kernel->handle(
    Laminas\Diactoros\ServerRequestFactory::fromGlobals()
);

(new Laminas\HttpHandlerRunner\Emitter\SapiEmitter())->emit($response);

3. Point Nginx or Apache to public/.

4. Add packages incrementally: Template, Entity, Auth, etc.

4 · Development Server

php vendor/bin/dev-server --open   # or: php vendor/bin/ml serve

• Auto-reloads on file change (templates, PHP, assets).

• Serves static files from public/.

• Injects a websocket snippet for live refresh.

5 · Production Deployment

1. Compile dependencies

composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader

2. Cache config & views

php vendor/bin/ml config:cache
php vendor/bin/ml view:clear

3. Migrate DB

php vendor/bin/ml migrate --env=prod

4. Run via PHP-FPM

   Sample Nginx block:

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name app.example.com;

    root /var/www/myapp/public;

    index index.php;

    location / {
        try_files $uri /index.php$is_args$args;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.4-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    }
}

Add a reverse-proxy cache (Cloudflare, FastCGI cache, etc.) if you serve mostly HTML pages.

6 · Optional PHP Extensions

All packages degrade gracefully—install when you need them.

Next Steps

• Create your first Entity & migration → continue with the Database tutorial.

• Add authentication → see the Auth package docs.

• Hook Grafana & Prometheus → follow Telemetry setup.

Happy shipping! 🚀