README

Castle analyzes user behavior in web and mobile apps to stop fraud before it happens.

Usage

See the documentation for how to use this SDK with the Castle APIs

Requirements

PHP 7.2 or newer, with the curl and json extensions. The library is tested against PHP 7.2 through 8.5.

Getting started

Install the latest version with Composer:

composer require castle/castle-php

Then load Composer's autoloader and configure the library with your Castle API secret:

require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';

Castle::setApiKey('YOUR_API_SECRET');

Namespaces

As of 4.0 the library lives under the Castle\ namespace, e.g. Castle\Castle, Castle\Webhook, Castle\RequestContext, Castle\ApiError. This is the canonical API:

use Castle\Castle;
use Castle\Webhook;
use Castle\WebhookVerificationError;

Castle::setApiKey('YOUR_API_SECRET');

$verdict = Castle::filter([
  'request_token' => $requestToken,
  'name' => '$registration',
  'user' => ['id' => '1234'],
]);

try {
  Webhook::verify();
} catch (WebhookVerificationError $e) {
  // reject the request
}

Backward compatibility

The historic global class names (Castle, Castle_*, RestModel) are kept as aliases of their namespaced counterparts, so existing integrations keep working without changes. Castle_ApiError and Castle\ApiError are the same class, so instanceof checks and catch blocks work with either name:

try {
  Castle::risk([/* ... */]);
} catch (Castle_ApiError $e) {
  // still catches the namespaced Castle\ApiError thrown by the library
}

New code should prefer the namespaced names; the global aliases are retained for compatibility.

Optional Configurations

Set the per-request timeout in milliseconds (applied to both connection and transfer). Defaults to 1000:

Castle::setRequestTimeout(1500);

Set the failover strategy used when a risk or filter request cannot be completed (see Failover):

Castle::setFailoverStrategy(Castle\Failover::ALLOW);

Set a specified list of request headers to include with event context (optional, not recommended):

Castle::setUseAllowlist($headers)

Request context

By default, Castle extracts all the necessary information, such as IP and request headers, from the PHP globals in order to build and send the requests to the Castle API. However in some cases you want to track data to Castle from a context where these globals are not available, eg. when tracking async in a background worker. In this case you can build the request context manually.

Origin IP Address

By default, the SDK extracts the contextual client IP address from headers in the following priority:

1. X-Forwarded-For
2. X-Real-Ip
3. REMOTE_ADDR

If the true client IP address is not specified in the above headers, you can manually set the IP address like so:

Castle_RequestContext['ip'] = '1.1.1.1'
$context = Castle_RequestContext::extractJson();

Lists

Manage lists and their items:

$list = Castle::createList([
  'name' => 'Blocklist',
  'color' => '$red',
  'primary_field' => 'user.email',
]);

$lists = Castle::getAllLists();
$list  = Castle::getList($list['id']);
Castle::updateList($list['id'], ['name' => 'Renamed']);
Castle::deleteList($list['id']);
Castle::queryList(['filters' => [['field' => 'name', 'op' => '$eq', 'value' => 'Blocklist']]]);

List items:

$item = Castle::createListItem($list['id'], [
  'author' => 'user:123',
  'primary_value' => 'user@example.com',
]);

Castle::getListItem($list['id'], $item['id']);
Castle::updateListItem($list['id'], $item['id'], ['comment' => 'Flagged for review']);
Castle::queryListItems($list['id'], ['filters' => []]);
Castle::countListItems($list['id'], ['filters' => []]);
Castle::archiveListItem($list['id'], $item['id']);
Castle::unarchiveListItem($list['id'], $item['id']);
Castle::createListItems($list['id'], ['items' => [/* ... */]]);

Privacy

Request or delete the data Castle stores for a user:

Castle::requestUserData([
  'identifier' => 'user@example.com',
  'identifier_type' => '$email',
]);

Castle::deleteUserData([
  'identifier' => 'user@example.com',
  'identifier_type' => '$email',
]);

Failover

When a risk or filter request cannot be completed because of a network error, timeout or a 5xx response from the Castle API, the SDK returns a synthetic decision instead of throwing, so your authentication flow keeps working. The decision is controlled by the failover strategy:

Castle::setFailoverStrategy(Castle\Failover::ALLOW); // default
// Castle\Failover::DENY
// Castle\Failover::CHALLENGE
// Castle\Failover::THROW  -- re-raise the underlying exception instead

A failed-over response carries failover => true and a failover_reason:

$verdict = Castle::risk([
  'request_token' => $requestToken,
  'name' => '$login',
  'user' => ['id' => '1234'],
]);

$verdict->failover;        // true when the request failed over
$verdict->action;          // 'allow', 'deny' or 'challenge'
$verdict->policy['action'];

Successful responses include failover => false. Client errors (4xx, such as 422 invalid_request_token) are never failed over and always raise.

Do-not-track

Disable outbound tracking calls, for example in staging or test environments. While disabled, risk, filter and log return an allow response without contacting the API:

Castle::disableTracking();
Castle::tracked();        // false
Castle::enableTracking();

Events (enterprise)

Query event data:

Castle::eventsSchema();
Castle::queryEvents(['filters' => [['field' => 'name', 'op' => '$eq', 'value' => '$login']]]);
Castle::groupEvents(['filters' => [], 'group_by' => 'name']);

Webhooks

Verify the authenticity of incoming Castle webhooks. By default the raw body is read from php://input and the signature from the X-Castle-Signature header:

try {
  Castle_Webhook::verify();
  // handle the webhook payload
} catch (Castle_WebhookVerificationError $e) {
  http_response_code(404);
}

The body and signature can also be passed explicitly:

Castle_Webhook::verify($rawBody, $signatureHeader);

Errors

Whenever something unexpected happens, an exception is thrown to indicate what went wrong.

Running test suite

Install the dev dependencies and run the suite with:

composer install
composer test