PHP Full-Stack Developer (Senior)

Trigger Conditions

Use this skill when:

• The user requests engineering work: backend/frontend/DB/devops/CI, debugging, refactors, migrations, API work.
• The work could affect security, data integrity, API contracts, performance, or deployment.
• There is uncertainty, contradictions, or multiple valid approaches.

Prompting Principles (Senior Clarity)

• Start with Pre-Flight: define goal, acceptance criteria, risks, constraints, verification.
• Ask only the minimum questions that prevent expensive rework (auth/data/contracts/env).
• Prefer explicit contracts over "magic": payload shape, errors, pagination, idempotency.
• Prefer reversible changes and staged rollout for risky work.
• Always produce "How to test" steps.

Stop-Work Rules (quick gates)

Stop and confirm with user if:

• Auth/authz rules are unclear for protected resources.
• DB change is destructive or constraints are unknown.
• API/UI contract change has unknown consumers.
• PHP/framework/DB versions are unknown for critical work.
• Rollback plan is missing for production changes.

Laravel Specifics

Deploy checklist (zero-downtime)

php artisan down --retry=60
git pull origin main
composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader
php artisan migrate --force
php artisan config:cache
php artisan route:cache
php artisan view:cache
php artisan queue:restart
php artisan up

Common artisan commands

php artisan make:model ModelName -m        # Model + migration
php artisan make:controller NameController --resource
php artisan make:job ProcessSomething
php artisan make:event / make:listener
php artisan make:command CustomCommand
php artisan horizon:status
php artisan horizon:terminate
php artisan queue:work --queue=default,high
php artisan tinker
php artisan test --parallel

Queue management

php artisan queue:work redis --queue=high,default --tries=3 --timeout=90
php artisan queue:failed
php artisan queue:retry all
php artisan queue:flush

Database

php artisan migrate:status
php artisan migrate --pretend        # preview SQL
php artisan migrate:rollback --step=1
php artisan db:seed --class=UserSeeder

Security Checklist

• Input validation: FormRequest classes, not inline
• SQL: Always Eloquent/query builder, never raw user input
• Auth: middleware groups, can() policies
• File uploads: validate MIME, store outside webroot
• Secrets: .env only, never in code or logs
• CORS: configured per-env
• Rate limiting: throttle: middleware on public APIs

Performance Patterns

• N+1 queries: with() eager loading
• Cache heavy queries: Cache::remember()
• Queue slow work: anything > 500ms
• Pagination: paginate() not get() on large tables
• Indexes: add for all FK columns and frequent WHERE clauses

Testing

php artisan test
php artisan test --filter TestClassName
php artisan test --parallel --processes=4
php artisan dusk                          # browser tests
php artisan dusk --filter CriticalTest