Technology stack

A map, not a manual: each entry names what Core uses, the major version it is on, and why. The deeper pages are linked rather than repeated. Versions are those in composer.json, package.json and their lock files; when this page and a lock file disagree, the lock file is right.

Backend

Piece	Version	Why it is there
PHP	8.4	The language floor for Core and both shared packages.
Laravel	12	The application framework; Core uses the streamlined structure, with routing and middleware in `bootstrap/app.php`.
Inertia (`inertiajs/inertia-laravel`)	3	Serves the console and the builder as Vue pages from ordinary controllers, without a separate API layer.
`spatie/laravel-permission`	8	Staff roles and permissions.
`spatie/laravel-settings`	3	Typed platform and tenant settings, stored rather than kept in `.env`.
`spatie/laravel-data`	4	DTOs that cross boundaries; `fapost/foundation` builds on it too.
`giggsey/libphonenumber-for-php`	9	Phone number parsing and validation in flow input and the country catalog.

Development-only: Telescope, Pail, ide-helper, Ray and Laravel Boost.

Data

Piece	Why it is there
PostgreSQL 15+ (the bundled compose ships 16)	The only production database. A landlord schema holds platform records; each tenant gets a schema of its own, migrated from `database/migrations/tenant`. Conversation history and flow logs are partitioned tables.
Redis 7	Cache, sessions and queues, plus the webhook routing registry, idempotency keys and session locks on the message hot path.
Media storage	Per tenant: a private local disk under `storage/app` by default, or S3, chosen in the tenant’s configuration and built per call so nothing leaks between tenants.

How tenant context is held and switched: Tenant-aware execution. Why migrations are pure DDL: Migration isolation. Why keys are ULIDs in uuid columns: ID strategy.

Queues and realtime

Piece	Version	Why it is there
Laravel Horizon	5	Supervises the Redis queue workers. Queues are named by purpose, not by convenience — see Queues.
Laravel Reverb	1	The optional websocket server for live console screens; without it those screens poll.
`laravel-echo` + `pusher-js`	2 / 8	The console’s websocket client, loaded only when broadcasting is on.

Workers are long-lived, which is what Long-lived worker safety is about. Turning websockets on: Realtime.

Console front end

The staff console — platform administration and the per-assistant screens — is an Inertia application in Vue. Core has no Filament or Livewire: neither is in composer.json, so in Core’s CI a reference to either fails phpstan’s unknown-class checks. The PHPat rule NoFilamentTest bites only where Filament is installed — a local Core checkout with the SaaS overlay.

Piece	Version	Why it is there
Vue	3	Every Core screen, with TypeScript throughout.
`@inertiajs/vue3`	3	The client half of Inertia: pages in `resources/js/pages`, props from the controller.
TypeScript	6	Type-checked with `vue-tsc`.
Vite	8	Builds every front-end entry; on Vite 8 the bundler underneath is Rolldown. Configuration is `vite.config.ts`.
Tailwind CSS	4	Styling, through the `@tailwindcss/vite` plugin rather than a PostCSS config.
`@fapost/ui`	—	Core’s component kit in `resources/js/ui`: shadcn-vue components (new-york style) on `reka-ui` 2, plus the console shell. An alias, not an npm package.
`@lucide/vue`	1	Icons.
Fontsource	—	Onest, Roboto Condensed and Victor Mono, bundled rather than loaded from a font CDN.

Translations come from Laravel’s lang/ files (en, ru, uk) and reach a page as shared Inertia props, one namespace per page — there is no separate front-end i18n library. Admin UI language and content language are different things; see Multilingual. Solution screens are prebuilt bundles that import Vue, Inertia and @fapost/ui from the console through an import map, so a Solution never ships its own copy. See Console UI.

The flow builder

The builder in resources/js/builder is a separate Vite entry with its own root view and stylesheet. It is still Inertia and Vue, but the canvas holds a lot of client state, so it keeps it in Pinia stores rather than in page props. Node configuration forms are rendered from the schema a handler declares, not written per node — see Builder UI. resources/js/tma is a third entry: a small Vue Router app served as a Telegram Mini App for forms.

Extensions

Core is extended from outside, never by forking it. Briefly:

fapost/foundation — the public contracts a Solution or Plugin builds against; Core implements them.
fapost/support — primitives with no domain meaning, including the builder schema field classes.
Solutions and Plugins — separate Composer packages, added to a checkout with a composer overlay that leaves Core’s own composer.json untouched.
The SaaS operator package — the control plane of the hosted service (billing, onboarding), a separate repository on top of Core and never part of it. Its operator panel is built on Filament and lives in that package, not in Core.

Where each thing belongs: Extension model. Working on the packages locally: Development setup. Which way dependencies may point: Dependency direction.

Gateway and images

The gateway in gateway/ is an optional Go service (Go 1.27, go-redis 9) in front of webhook ingress: it verifies, deduplicates and queues provider webhooks without a PHP process. See Webhook gateway. A release publishes three images from .github/workflows/publish-images.yml:

Image	What it is
`core`	PHP 8.4 FPM on Alpine with every extension Core needs. One image serves three roles — PHP-FPM, Horizon and the scheduler — that differ only in the command, so their dependencies cannot drift.
`web`	nginx with the compiled front end baked in. Its assets stage builds from `package.json` and `resources/` alone, with nothing from Composer.
`gateway`	The Go binary on a `scratch` image.

core and web come from one docker/Dockerfile; its dev target is the local development image, built from the same base. Running them: Docker Compose.

Quality

Check	What it guards
PHPUnit 13, in parallel through ParaTest	Behaviour. Unit and feature suites.
PHPat on PHPStan 2	Architecture rules in `tests/Architecture`, run with `composer run test:arch`.
Pint	PHP code style; CI fails on a style difference instead of fixing it.
Vitest + Vue Test Utils	Front-end units; a test that needs a DOM opts into `happy-dom`.
`vue-tsc`	Types across the Vue and TypeScript code.
`go vet` and `go test`	The gateway.

CI runs the PHP job twice — on SQLite, what a developer runs locally, and on PostgreSQL, where schema-per-tenant switching and partitioned tables actually behave as in production — with a real Redis beside both. The front-end job type-checks, tests and runs the same production build the web image does. How to run all of it: Testing and architecture checks. Agents working on Core use Jig for task routing and project knowledge.

Running it locally

Docker or a local install, and the commands for both: Local setup.

Overview

Development environment

Extension model

Building extensions

Flow nodes

Extension surfaces

Shipping an extension

Core internals

Contributing to Core

Technology stack

Backend

Data

Queues and realtime

Console front end

The flow builder

Extensions

Gateway and images

Quality

Running it locally

​Backend

​Data

​Queues and realtime

​Console front end

​The flow builder

​Extensions

​Gateway and images

​Quality

​Running it locally

Backend

Data

Queues and realtime

Console front end

The flow builder

Extensions

Gateway and images

Quality

Running it locally