Rediscover the Console - SymfonyCon Amsterdam 2025

Console is one of the most widely used Symfony components and ranks among the top 5 most downloaded PHP packages worldwide.

Used by essential tools such as Composer, PHPStan, and Psalm, as well as by most PHP frameworks, CMS, e-commerce platforms, and ultimately our end applications, the console is ubiquitous.

The more a package is used, the more difficult it is to evolve. The slightest bug fix on the Console can disrupt millions of users. Nevertheless, the component has been constantly improved thanks to the countless contributions it has received since its introduction in 2010, while remaining true to its promise of backward compatibility.

But it's time to give the Console a major facelift, not only to get rid of some limitations and other design issues, but also to open it up to new possibilities.
That's why a few key contributors have been working hard to redesign it.

It's available since Symfony 7.3, has been improved a lot for 7.4 (released during SymfonyCon) and it will be even better in future versions.
Join me to rediscover the Console!

Transcript

1. Rediscover the Console
2. Robin Chalas github.com/chalasr chalasr.bsky.social x.com/chalas_r PHP Consultant / Symfony Core Team / baksla.sh Co-founder
4. Eases the creation of beautiful and testable command line interfaces.
5. most used PHP package 6th
6. 1B Installs overall 500K+ daily
8. Commands are to Console what Controllers are to Http.
10. Forced Inheritance
11. All we should need
12. What we got
13. legacy
14. Lots of boilerplate
15. Lacks types
17. FIXED 🙌
19. Cool, right? 🥳
23. How does it work internally?
24. Builds on existing infrastructure
25. The InvokableCommand wrapper
26. Conceptual differences and llimitations
27. No Command::interact()
28. Available since Symfony 7.3
29. Rector can help upgrading your existing commands already!
31. Available since Symfony 7.3
32. What about improving futher for Symfony 8?
33. 7.4: Enums support ☑️
34. Enums support
35. 7.4: With Console Standalone ☑️
36. Just works 🎉
37. 7.4: Limitation removed
38. 7.4: #[MapInput]
39. Now, what’s next?
40. #NEED Validator integration
41. Command Arguments Resolvers
42. Command Arguments Resolvers
43. #NEED Adjust MakerBundle PR welcome™ ☑️
45. Thank you 🍻