Coding at the Speed of Thought: Symfony DX in 2026 

➔ PHP API Platform creator, Symfony Core Team ➔ Go FrankenPHP and Mercure.rocks creator, Caddy maintainer, Go core contributor ➔ C PHP maintainer Kévin Dunglas: Co-founder @ Les-Tilleuls.coop @[email protected] @dunglas.dev @dunglas 

Web and Cloud Experts ➔ Development (Symfony, React, Vue, Go, Rust...) ➔ Support & hosting (Symfony) apps ➔ Consultancy & maintenance ➔ UX & UI design ➔ [email protected] 💌 

Installing PHP in 2026 🐘 

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FrankenPHP A modern app server for PHP apps: ➔ Replaces NGINX+FPM or Apache+mod_php ➔ Built for easy deployments: compatible with Docker, can embed your app in the binary! ➔ The fastest PHP engine, even in classic mode ➔ Compatible with all existing PHP apps and extensions: progressive enhancement 

FrankenPHP: Some Features ZSTANDARD, BROTLI & GZIP (PRE-)COMPRESSION Modern compression formats are supported out-of-the-box. Assets can be pre-compressed. STRUCTURED LOGS Bring a more defined format and details to your logging: frankenphp_log() PROMETHEUS/OPENMETRICS & OPENTELEMETRY Built-in metrics and tracing support! HTTP/3 Native support for HTTPS, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3. HTTPS AUTOMATION Automatic HTTPS certificate generation, renewal and revocation. Encrypted Client Hello support CLOUD-NATIVE API-first, Twelve-Factor, graceful reloads... 

➔ Super simple to use: ● Standalone binary (that can contain your app) ● No runtime dependencies ● Batteries included ➔ Built on top of the Caddy web server ● All Caddy features and modules ● Benefits from Go features ● Extensible: in Go, in C, in PHP ➔ Designed for prod, CI and dev envs FrankenPHP: Modern PHP App Server 

Linux and macOS curl https://frankenphp.dev/install.sh | sh ./frankenphp php-server -r public/ 

FrankenPHP on Windows ➔ Just released (FrankenPHP 1.12) ➔ All FrankenPHP features are supported, including extensions, worker mode and hot reloading ➔ Relies on the official PHP distribution ➔ Possible thanks to bleeding edge features introduced in Go 1.26 

Windows irm https://frankenphp.dev/install.ps1 | iex ./frankenphp php-server -r public/ 

Docker 

Symfony Docker ➔ Docker-based skeleton and installer ➔ Compatible with Flex configurators for Docker ➔ No local dependencies, you just need Docker ➔ No bloat, readable config: only 1 containers ➔ FrankenPHP-based ➔ Automatic TLS certificate generation and renewal ➔ Native Mercure support ➔ Prod ready: slim, rootless, image 

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Windows docker compose up --wait 

Development Containers 󰞵 

➔ Specify how to start a fully-featured development environment in containers: ● App, libraries, commands… ● Dev tools ● IDE extensions ➔ Open specification (by Microsoft): devcontainer.json ➔ Supported by: ● Visual Studio Code, PHPStorm, Emacs… ● GitHub Codespace ● Claude Code (more about this later) Development Containers 

Now Available by Default in Symfony Docker! 

Worker Mode, for dev 👷 

⚡ in Production: Symfony Apps Are Compiled ➔ Config, DI, Routing, Twig… Symfony caches everything! ➔ The cache is populated once, ideally at build time ● bin/console cache:warmup ➔ Then it is reused for each request 

🐢 in Dev ➔ Each time a file (PHP, Twig, YAML…) is touched… ➔ … the cache must be re-populated ➔ Populating the cache means writing files on disk (slow) ➔ On large projects (ex: Sylius), this can be very slow and hurts the DX 

Here Comes FrankenPHP Watchers ➔ FrankenPHP will watch files or directory for changes ➔ When a watcher file changes, the worker script is automatically restarted ➔ By default, typical Symfony files are watched: ● PHP ● YAML ● Twig ● .env 

FrankenPHP: Worker Watch Mode localhost root public/ php_server { # Symfony 7.4+ natively supports FrankenPHP's worker mode worker { file ./public/worker.php watch } } 

Patterns Can Be Customized frankenphp { worker { file public/index.php watch /path/to/app watch /path/to/app/*.php watch /path/to/app/**/*.php watch /path/to/app/**/*.{php,twig} } } 

Worker In Dev Is Useful ➔ To render most web pages, browsers send several HTTP requests in parallel ➔ If these requests are handled by PHP (ex: JS, Turbo, React…), you’ll benefit from worker mode even in dev: the app will be hot ➔ Symfony cache is refreshed instantly, in the background, when you save a file in your editor ➔ This dramatically reduces the time before the page is available 

Now Available by Default in Symfony Docker! 

Hot Reloading 

Hot Reloading ➔ JS frameworks has a nice feature: hot reloading (sometimes called HMR, for Hot Module Reloading) ➔ With Vite, Webpack, etc, when you change some code in your editor, the code is compiled in the background then “pushed” to the browser, which instantly updates ➔ This requires watching for file changes, and a persistent connection between the server and the browser (e.g., WebSockets) 

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FrankenPHP Has the Infrastructure for HR FrankenPHP introduced two new features which bring hot reloading to PHP: ➔ File watchers ➔ mercure_publish($topic, $data): dispatch a Mercure update (Server-Sent Event-based) to all connected browsers 

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FrankenPHP Hot Reloading FrankenPHP 1.11 contains a game-changer for PHP apps development: hot reloading ➔ FrankenPHP watches files (PHP, templates, JS, CSS…) for changes ➔ When a change occurs, it: ● dispatches a Mercure update to the browser containing the list of changed files ● reloads worker scripts if needed, refreshes the Symfony cache in the background 

FrankenPHP Hot Reloading # dev.Caddyfile mercure { anonymous } root ./public php_server { hot_reload worker { file ./public/index.php watch } } 

Client-Side Hot Reloading {# templates/base.html.twig #} {% set frankenphpHotReload = app.request.server.get('FRANKENPHP_HOT_RELOAD') %} {% if frankenphpHotReload %} {% endif %} {# ... #} 

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Now Available by Default in Symfony Docker! 

Xdebug 

Xdebug Integration ➔ Xdebug: the most popular step by step debugger for PHP ● Pre-installed in Symfony Docker ➔ Out of the box support when using Dev Containers ● Start the project ● Add a breakpoint in Visual Studio Code (the VSCode extension is preinstalled in the Dev Container) ● It works! ● Even with worker mode on! 

Now Available by Default in Symfony Docker! 

Coding Agents 

Can we really speak about developer eXperience in 2026 without mentioning coding agents? ➔ Symfony Docker now contains an integration with Claude Code ➔ No more permissions asking: YOLO! ➔ Claude is sandboxed, using Dev Containers ➔ A default firewall script, with a strict allow list (Packagist, GitHub…), is provided Coding Agents: Coding at the Speed of Thought 

Now Available by Default in Symfony Docker! 

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Remote Control (Live Demo) Type /remote-control in Claude Code: ➔ Continue your local session from any device ➔ Work from your phone using the iOS or Android app ➔ Not a cloud thing: the code is written and tested on your local computer! 

Thank you! Want to talk about Symfony, API Platform or FrankenPHP? Come at our booth! les-tilleuls.coop [email protected] @coopTilleuls