BowPHP Console

Introduction

The BowPHP console is a powerful tool that helps you speed up your development. It provides a set of handy commands to generate classes, test your application locally, manage your databases, and much more.

Usage

All commands are run from the root of your application using the syntax: php bow <command>

Generation commands

These commands help you quickly create the building blocks of your application:

Command	Description
generate:resource	Creates a complete REST controller. Example: php bow generate:resource UserController
generate:key	Generates a new security key for the application
generate:session-table	Creates a migration for the sessions table
generate:notification-table	Creates a migration for the notifications table
generate:cache-table	Creates a migration for the cache table
generate:queue-table	Creates a migration for the queues table

Alias

gen is the alias for generate (and not for add). The examples above can therefore be written as:

php bow gen:resource UserController
php bow gen:key

Adding components

These commands let you quickly add components to your application:

Controllers and Middleware

Command	Description
add:controller	Creates a new controller. Example: php bow add:controller OrderController
add:middleware	Creates a new middleware. Example: php bow add:middleware AuthMiddleware

Models and Database

Command	Description
add:model	Creates a new model. Example: php bow add:model Product
add:migration	Creates a new migration. Example: php bow add:migration create_orders_table
add:seeder	Creates a seeding file. Example: php bow add:seeder UsersSeeder
add:validation	Creates a new validator. Example: php bow add:validation UserValidation

Services and Configuration

Command	Description
add:service	Creates a new service. Example: php bow add:service PaymentService
add:configuration	Creates a configuration file. Example: php bow add:configuration payment
add:exception	Creates a new exception. Example: php bow add:exception InvalidUserException

Events and Notifications

Command	Description
add:event	Creates a new event. Example: php bow add:event UserRegisteredEvent
add:listener	Creates an event listener. Example: php bow add:listener UserRegisteredListener
add:notifier	Creates a new notifier. Example: php bow add:notifier EmailNotifier

Queue and Tasks

Command	Description
add:task	Creates a new queued task. Example: php bow add:task SendInvoiceTask
add:scheduler	Creates a scheduled task (scheduler). Example: php bow add:scheduler CleanupScheduler
add:command	Creates a custom console command. Example: php bow add:command ImportDataCommand

Migrations

Migrations make it easy to manage the evolution of your databases:

Command	Description
migrate	Applies all pending migrations
migration:migrate	Alias for migrate
migration:rollback	Rolls back the last migration
migration:reset	Resets all migrations

Caution

The migration:reset command deletes all data. Use it carefully in production.

Seeding

Seeding lets you initialize your database with data:

Command	Description
seed:all	Runs all seeders
seed:file [class]	Runs a specific seeder. Example: php bow seed:file UsersSeeder

Queue Worker

Manage your queued jobs:

Command	Description
run:worker	Starts the worker to process jobs
flush:worker	Empties the queue (use with caution)

Available options for run:worker:

• --connection: Connection to use (beanstalkd, sqs, redis, database)
• --queue: Queue name (default: default)
• --tries: Maximum number of attempts per job
• --timeout: Timeout in seconds per job
• --sleep: Pause between jobs in seconds

php bow run:worker --queue=emails --tries=5

Scheduler

Manage scheduled tasks. The verb is schedule (singular), and there are five actions:

Command	Description
schedule:run	Runs the due tasks once (ideal for a cron running every minute)
schedule:work	Runs the scheduler in daemon mode (continuous loop)
schedule:list	Lists all registered tasks
schedule:next	Displays the next run time for each task
schedule:test [class]	Runs a specific task for testing

# Run once (for cron)
php bow schedule:run

# Daemon mode (runs continuously in a loop)
php bow schedule:work

# View
php bow schedule:list
php bow schedule:next

# Test a task by class name
php bow schedule:test App\\Tasks\\CleanupTask

Clearing the cache

These commands let you reset the caches:

Command	Description
clear:view	Deletes the compiled views cache
clear:cache	Deletes the general cache
clear:session	Deletes the sessions cache
clear:log	Deletes the log files
clear:all	Deletes all caches

Development server

Command	Description
run:server	Starts a local web server
run:console	Starts an interactive console (REPL)

# Server on the default port (8080)
php bow run:server

# Server on a custom port
php bow run:server --port=3000

# Interactive console
php bow run:console

Creating a custom command

1. Generate the class

php bow add:command SendReportCommand

This command creates a file at app/Commands/SendReportCommand.php:

<?php

namespace App\Commands;

use Bow\Console\AbstractCommand;
use Bow\Console\Color;

class SendReportCommand extends AbstractCommand
{
  /**
   * Method called when the command is invoked. The first argument is
   * the raw name of the command as typed by the user.
   */
  public function process(): void
  {
    echo Color::green("Rapport envoyé avec succès !\n");
  }
}

Called method

For a class registered as a command, Bow calls the process() method. You can also register a closure (see below) — in that case it receives (Argument $arg, Setting $setting).

2. Register the command

Registration is done via Console::register() (static) or $console->addCommand() (instance). Both methods accept up to four arguments:

use Bow\Console\Console;
use App\Commands\SendReportCommand;

Console::register(
    'send:report',                     // Name used on the command line
    SendReportCommand::class,           // Class or closure
    'Envoie le rapport quotidien',     // Description (shown in `php bow help`)
    "\nUsage:\n  php bow send:report [--to=...]\n"  // Help shown by `php bow send:report help`
);

You can place these calls in a dedicated bootstrap file (declared in Setting::getBootstrap()), or in the run() method of a service provider (Bow\Configuration\Configuration).

3. Run

# Run the command
php bow send:report

# View its help
php bow send:report help

# The command also appears in the "CUSTOM" section of the global help
php bow help

Closures

For simple commands you can register a closure directly:

Console::register('hello', function ($arg, $setting) {
    echo "Hello, " . ($arg->getTarget() ?? 'world') . "\n";
});

Is something missing?

If you run into problems with the documentation or have suggestions to improve the documentation or the project in general, please open an issue for us, or send a tweet mentioning the Twitter account @bowframework or directly on github.