phpgraph

<p align="center">
  <img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hbenabdallah/phpgraph/main/docs/phpgraph.png" alt="phpgraph turns a PHP codebase into a knowledge graph of domains, handlers, repositories, controllers and adapters, served to AI agents through a CLI and an MCP server" width="100%">
</p>

<h1 align="center">phpgraph</h1>

<p align="center">
  <b>A knowledge graph of your PHP codebase, for AI coding agents.</b><br>
  Static analysis served over MCP to <a href="https://github.com/hbenabdallah/sherpa">Sherpa</a>, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and any MCP client.<br>
  No LLM, no network, no embeddings: deterministic facts, each with a confidence level.
</p>

<p align="center">
  <a href="https://github.com/hbenabdallah/phpgraph/actions/workflows/ci.yml"><img src="https://github.com/hbenabdallah/phpgraph/actions/workflows/ci.yml/badge.svg" alt="CI"></a>
  <a href="https://packagist.org/packages/hbenabdallah/phpgraph"><img src="https://img.shields.io/packagist/v/hbenabdallah/phpgraph" alt="Packagist version"></a>
  <a href="https://packagist.org/packages/hbenabdallah/phpgraph"><img src="https://img.shields.io/packagist/dt/hbenabdallah/phpgraph" alt="Downloads"></a>
  <img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/php-%3E%3D8.2-777bb4" alt="PHP 8.2+">
  <a href="https://github.com/hbenabdallah/phpgraph/blob/main/LICENSE"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/license-PolyForm%20Shield%201.0.0-blue" alt="License: PolyForm Shield 1.0.0"></a>
  <a href="https://mcpservers.org/servers/hbenabdallah/phpgraph"><img src="https://mcpservers.org/badge.svg" alt="Listed on mcpservers.org"></a>
</p>

<p align="center"><b>English</b> · <a href="https://github.com/hbenabdallah/phpgraph/blob/main/README.fr.md">Français</a></p>

---

## Why phpgraph?

An AI agent dropped into an unfamiliar PHP project reads files one by one and greps for names. It misses what matters most in a real codebase: **who calls what, which handler receives a message, which controller serves a route, what breaks if a method changes, and which layer depends on which**.

phpgraph parses the whole project once (with [`nikic/php-parser`](https://github.com/nikic/PHP-Parser)) and answers those questions from a graph:

- **Deterministic facts, not guesses.** Every relation is `EXTRACTED` (read in the code), `INFERRED` (resolved from declared types) or `AMBIGUOUS` (a guess, labelled as such).
- **It says what it does not know.** Unresolved calls, missing `vendor/`, messages without handlers: the gaps are reported, so the agent knows when to read the code itself.
- **Built for DDD and hexagonal architecture**, then microservices, then PHP in general: Symfony, Laravel, Ecotone, PrestaShop, WordPress, or plain PHP.
- **Private by design.** Your code never leaves your machine, and phpgraph never executes it: it only parses it.

## Features

- **Call graph with type inference**: return types, chained calls (`$a->b()->c()`), local variables, docblocks (`@return`, `@var`), and signatures of your `vendor/` dependencies, so chains go through Doctrine, Symfony or Laravel APIs.
- **Architecture**: DDD and hexagonal layers, bounded contexts, layer rules checked in CI (`phpgraph check`), and impact analysis (`impact_of`): what depends on a class or method, and which tests to run.
- **Messages and events**: sender → message → handler for Symfony Messenger, Laravel jobs and events, Ecotone, PrestaShop CQRS, WordPress hooks, domain events and your own buses, from attributes, service configuration (YAML, XML, PHP) or code shape.
- **HTTP**: routes (Symfony attributes, YAML and PHP routing files, API Platform resources, Laravel route files, controllers named by container service id) linked to controllers, and HTTP calls linked to the routes they reach. A route whose controller class exists neither in the project nor in `vendor/` is reported with its routing file.
- **Dependency injection**: what the Symfony container configuration injects beyond constructor types, every service of a tag (`tagged_iterator`, `#[AutowireIterator]`) or a service named by id, from PHP, YAML or XML configuration, including helpers called with literal arguments (`Wiring::wire($services, 'sales', ...)`, evaluated, never run): a validator is linked to the rules it receives. A rule declaring what it accepts (`supports(object $input): bool { return $input instanceof CreateEstimateQuery; }`, also `canHandle`, `accepts`…) is kept out of the use cases passing another input to the shared pipeline, the classes the input's properties hold included. An input typed by an interface is any project class implementing it and the parameter types it is passed on to (`QueryInterface $query` given to `setUp(CreateEstimateQueryInterface $query)`: a `CreateEstimateQuery`); a guard it cannot read, or a rule running for some of these classes only, is kept, marked `supports() not resolved`.
- **Microservices**: one id space per service, and links between services through their contracts: shared message classes, routing keys, HTTP routes.
- **API schemas**: the operations of OpenAPI (Swagger) documents linked to the routes implementing them, or, for a document of another API, to the HTTP calls of its client; the rpcs of protobuf services linked to the classes implementing their generated interface. What is documented and not implemented, and the routes no document describes, are reported. `impact` lists the operations behind a change (the contract its clients rely on), `outline` those a feature serves.
- **Zero-configuration MCP server**: built on first use, rebuilt incrementally when the code changes (about 3 s per edit on an 8,400-file project).

## Quick start

**1. Install.** A single executable, no PHP needed (Linux and macOS on x86_64 and ARM, Windows on x86_64):

```bash
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hbenabdallah/phpgraph/main/install.sh | sh                  # latest release
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hbenabdallah/phpgraph/main/install.sh | sh -s -- 0.2.0     # a given release
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hbenabdallah/phpgraph/main/install.sh | sh -s -- dev-main  # the main branch
```

```powershell
irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hbenabdallah/phpgraph/main/install.ps1 | iex                       # Windows
$env:PHPGRAPH_VERSION = "dev-main"; irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hbenabdallah/phpgraph/main/install.ps1 | iex
```

The script downloads the binary, checks its SHA-256 and puts it in `~/.local/bin` (Windows: `%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\phpgraph`, added to the PATH); `PHPGRAPH_INSTALL_DIR` changes the directory. Run it again to update. `dev-main` is rebuilt on every push to `main` (the `edge` pre-release). The binary is a static PHP runtime with phpgraph inside, built with [static-php-cli](https://github.com/crazywhalecc/static-php-cli).

With PHP 8.2+ installed, or with Docker:

```bash
composer require --dev hbenabdallah/phpgraph       # or: composer global require hbenabdallah/phpgraph
curl -LO https://github.com/hbenabdallah/phpgraph/releases/latest/download/phpgraph.phar
docker pull ghcr.io/hbenabdallah/phpgraph          # nothing else to install
```

**2. Connect your agent.** `mcp-config` prints a ready-to-paste configuration with the paths filled in (`vendor/bin/phpgraph` when installed with Composer):

```bash
phpgraph mcp-config sherpa    # Sherpa: a `sherpa mcp add` command, one declaration for every project
phpgraph mcp-config claude    # Claude Code: a `claude mcp add` command, or .mcp.json
phpgraph mcp-config codex     # Codex: ~/.codex/config.toml
phpgraph mcp-config cursor    # Cursor: .cursor/mcp.json, shareable with the team
phpgraph mcp-config json      # any other MCP client over stdio
```

Agents reach for grep first, even with phpgraph connected. `mcp-config` also prints a line for the instructions file of the project (`CLAUDE.md`, `AGENTS.md`) telling the agent to call phpgraph before grep or reading files; the MCP instructions of the server say it too.

With [Sherpa](https://github.com/hbenabdallah/sherpa), a terminal coding agent, one declaration serves every project: Sherpa starts its MCP servers from the project it runs in.

```bash
sherpa mcp add phpgraph -- ~/.local/bin/phpgraph serve
```

In a Sherpa session, `/mcp add` does the same, and the tools are there at once. Both write `~/.config/sherpa/mcp.json`.

With Claude Code (absolute paths, as `mcp-config` prints them):

```bash
claude mcp add phpgraph -- /home/you/.local/bin/phpgraph serve /path/to/project
```

**3. Ask your agent** something like *"Give me an overview of this project"*, *"How does an order get placed?"* or *"What breaks if I change `OrderRepository::save`?"*. The graph is built on the first call, then kept up to date.

## MCP tools

| Tool | Use it to |
|---|---|
| `overview` | Start here: Composer stack, namespace tree with layers, bounded contexts, layer-rule violations, messages, HTTP routes (each with method, path, controller and file up to 30, else grouped by path prefix), services, and what the graph cannot see. |
| `query_graph` | Find the code about a topic when you do not know the class names, by the words of their names (validated finds `Validator`), with the classes of the feature around the ones it names. A question about routes (*"mooc courses routes"*, *"GET /courses"*) returns the matching routes and their controllers. The families of classes around the answer are counted by folder (*ContextRuleInterface: 34 in …*), injected lists once (*ContextValidator receives 34 ContextRuleInterface*). |
| `outline` | Before explaining a feature: its structural outline, enough to read only the few files with non-obvious logic. The classes it is made of, by namespace and layer, with the first sentence of their docblock, their public signatures, constants and enum cases; the interfaces and base classes around it with their implementations by module (0 stated); the routes running into it, chain by chain, through the closures it runs; behaviour read in the bodies