Development assistant for building RESTful APIs with the coagus/php-api-builder v2 library. Use this skill whenever the user mentions php-api-builder, wants to create PHP API entities, services, middleware, authentication with JWT, query building, or any task related to building a REST API using this Composer package. Also trigger when the user asks about creating CRUD endpoints, defining database entities with PHP attributes, configuring API routing, or setting up ORM relationships (BelongsTo, HasMany, BelongsToMany). Trigger on: validation exception, entity not found exception, driver portability, RFC 7807 problem json, column allowlist, trusted proxies, CORS credentials, application/problem+json, ValidationException, EntityNotFoundException, per-route middleware, #[Middleware] attribute, #[Ignore] attribute, virtual property hook, password hash hook, set-only hook, foreign key idempotent, FK column suffix, well-known routes, /.well-known/ path, JWKS, jwks.json, OpenID Connect discovery, openid-configuratio
Expert on code quality audit — cyclomatic complexity, SOLID principles, DRY, method/class size, nesting depth, magic numbers, dead code, naming quality, performance smells, and maintainability. Use when auditing a pull request, enforcing quality gates, or deciding whether a change is ready to ship. Designed to be zero-tolerance: any violation becomes a Blocker that triggers a re-do.
Expert on diagrams-as-code for developer documentation. Use when the docs need a flowchart, sequence diagram, ER diagram, state machine, class diagram, or architecture diagram (C4). Primary tool is Mermaid (renders natively in GitHub, Markdown, and most viewers); PlantUML covered in references for advanced cases. Use whenever a doc task mentions "diagram", "flow", "architecture", "entity relationship", "sequence", "state", or when explaining a process visually.
Expert on relational database design and usage for PHP APIs — especially MySQL 8+, with awareness of PostgreSQL and SQLite differences. Use when designing schemas, choosing column types, adding indexes, writing migrations, writing PDO queries, handling transactions, or debugging slow queries. Covers normalization, index design, charset/collation, JSON columns, and cross-driver portability for the php-api-builder library.
Expert on ORM design patterns and anti-patterns — Active Record vs Data Mapper, identity map, unit of work, eager vs lazy loading, N+1 detection and cure, query builder composition, relationship cascading, scopes, soft deletes, optimistic locking, and performance profiling. Use when writing, reviewing, or optimizing ORM-layer code in the php-api-builder library to produce performant, maintainable data access code.
Expert-level PHP 8.4 development practices. Use when writing, reviewing, or refactoring modern PHP — especially for this library which relies on property hooks, asymmetric visibility, typed properties, and PHP attributes. Covers PSR-12 style, strict types, exception design, enum usage, readonly properties, first-class callable syntax, and common pitfalls to avoid.
Expert on PostgreSQL 14+ specific features and idioms — JSONB, TIMESTAMPTZ, UUID, arrays, ENUM types, partial/functional/GIN indexes, CTEs, window functions, RETURNING, upserts, full-text search (tsvector), row-level security, partitioning, EXPLAIN ANALYZE, and PDO pgsql driver specifics. Use when writing, optimizing, or debugging PostgreSQL-specific code for the php-api-builder library.
Expert on release engineering — semantic versioning, pre-release channels (alpha/beta/rc), conventional commits, release notes authoring, git tag strategy, GitHub Actions diagnosis, Docker Hub + Packagist verification, and post-release smoke testing. Use when preparing a release, writing release notes, investigating a CI failure, or designing a release workflow for the php-api-builder library.