README

The lightness PHP framework — fast, minimal, PSR-compliant.

Overview

Horizom is a lightweight PHP micro-framework built on PSR standards. It provides a clean, expressive foundation for building web applications and REST APIs without the overhead of a full-stack framework.

Core packages:

Requirements

• PHP 8.0 or higher
• Composer 2.x

Installation

composer create-project horizom/app my-project
cd my-project
cp .env.example .env

Start the built-in development server:

composer serve
# → http://localhost:8000

Project Structure

├── app/
│   ├── Controllers/       # Request handlers (PSR-7)
│   ├── Middlewares/       # PSR-15 middleware (CORS, errors…)
│   ├── Models/            # Domain models
│   └── Providers/         # Service providers
├── bootstrap/
│   ├── app.php            # Application bootstrap
│   └── dependencies.php   # Middleware registration
├── config/
│   ├── app.php            # App settings
│   ├── auth.php           # JWT / auth settings
│   └── database.php       # Database connections
├── public/
│   └── index.php          # Front controller
├── resources/
│   └── views/             # Blade templates
├── routes/
│   ├── web.php            # Web routes
│   └── api.php            # API routes
└── tests/
    └── Unit/              # PHPUnit test suites

Configuration

All sensitive values must be set in your .env file and are never committed to version control.

# Application
APP_NAME=Horizom
APP_ENV=development
APP_URL=http://localhost:8000
APP_DEBUG=false

# Database
DB_DRIVER=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=horizom
DB_USERNAME=root
DB_PASSWORD=

Access config values anywhere with the config() helper:

$name = config('app.name');         // "Horizom"
$dsn  = config('database.default'); // "development"

Routing

Web routes (routes/web.php)

$router->get('/', 'MainController@index');

API routes (routes/api.php)

$router->group(['prefix' => 'api'], function (RouteCollector $router) {
    $router->get('/status',  'ApiController@status');
    $router->get('/version', 'ApiController@version');
});

Use explicit HTTP verbs — avoid any() as it widens the attack surface.

Controllers

Controllers are final classes. They return a PSR-7 ResponseInterface.

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

namespace App\Controllers;

use Psr\Http\Message\ResponseInterface;

final class ApiController
{
    public function status(): ResponseInterface
    {
        return response()->json(['status' => 'UP']);
    }
}

Middleware

Registering middleware

Global middleware is registered in bootstrap/dependencies.php:

$app->add(new \App\Middlewares\CorsMiddleware());

CORS (CorsMiddleware)

Handles preflight OPTIONS requests directly — returns 204 without invoking the next handler — and attaches CORS headers to all other responses.

To restrict allowed origins in production, edit the $allowedOrigins property:

// app/Middlewares/CorsMiddleware.php
private array $allowedOrigins = [
    'https://myapp.com',
    'https://www.myapp.com',
];

Error handling (ErrorHandlerMiddleware)

Maps exceptions to structured HTTP responses:

XHR / AJAX requests receive a JSON payload; browser requests receive an HTML error page.

Stack traces are only included when app.pretty_debug = true. Never expose them in production.

Built-in API Endpoints

Views

Templates use the Blade engine. Layouts live in resources/views/.

@extends('default')

@section('content')
    <h1>Hello, World!</h1>
@endsection

Available helpers inside templates:

{{ config('app.name') }}
{{ asset('css/style.css') }}

Testing

Tests use PHPUnit 11 and live in tests/Unit/.

composer test
# or directly:
vendor/bin/phpunit

tests/
└── Unit/
    ├── Controllers/
    │   └── ApiControllerTest.php
    └── Middlewares/
        ├── CorsMiddlewareTest.php
        └── ErrorHandlerMiddlewareTest.php

Security

Learning Horizom

The full Horizom documentation covers installation, routing, middleware, templating, and more.

License

The Horizom framework is open-sourced software licensed under the MIT license.