🌨️ Frostel

A lightweight, expressive PHP MVC framework built for developers who want full control — without the bloat.

Inspired by Laravel's elegance, built from scratch with PHP 8.2+

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✨ Features

• MVC Architecture — clean separation of Models, Views, and Controllers
• Custom Router — define routes with full HTTP method support
• Middleware Support — protect routes with reusable middleware layers
• Database Migrations — version-controlled schema management
• Service Layer — keep your business logic organized and testable
• Blade-style Templating — familiar, expressive view rendering
• Snowflake CLI — Artisan-inspired command line tool for scaffolding
• Environment Config — .env support via vlucas/phpdotenv
• Mailer — built-in email support via Symfony Mailer
• HTTP Client — make external API requests via Symfony HTTP Client
• Tailwind CSS — frontend styling out of the box
• PHP 8.2+ — modern PHP, modern code

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📦 Installation

Install via Composer:

composer create-project amir-icecream/frostel my-app
cd my-app

Copy the environment file and configure it:

cp .env.example .env

Start the development server using Snowflake:

php Snowflake serve

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🗂️ Project Structure

├── app/                  # Controllers, Models
├── config/               # App configuration files
├── core/                 # Framework engine (Router, Console, Helper, etc.)
├── database/
│   └── migrations/       # Database migration files
├── public/               # Entry point (index.php), assets
├── resource/             # Views and templates
├── routes/               # Route definitions
├── services/             # Business logic service classes
├── storage/              # Logs, cache, uploaded files
├── templates/framework/  # Scaffolding templates used by Snowflake CLI
├── vendor/               # Composer dependencies
├── .env                  # Environment variables
├── Snowflake             # CLI tool
└── tailwind.config.js    # Tailwind CSS config

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🛣️ Routing

Define your routes in the routes/ directory:

use Core\Router;

Router::get('/home', [HomeController::class, 'index']);
Router::post('/user/create', [UserController::class, 'store']);

// With middleware
Router::get('/dashboard', [DashboardController::class, 'index'])->middleware('auth');

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🎮 Snowflake CLI

Frostel ships with Snowflake, a command-line tool for scaffolding and managing your app.

php Snowflake help              # Show all available commands

php Snowflake serve             # Start development server
php Snowflake make:controller UserController
php Snowflake make:model User
php Snowflake make:view dashboard
php Snowflake make:middleware AuthMiddleware
php Snowflake make:migration create_users_table

php Snowflake migrate           # Run all migrations
php Snowflake migrate:reset     # Rollback all migrations
php Snowflake migrate:fresh     # Reset and re-run all migrations

php Snowflake view-fresh        # Clear cached views
php Snowflake delete-logs       # Clear log files

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🗃️ Migrations

Create and manage your database schema:

php Snowflake make:migration create_posts_table
php Snowflake migrate

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🛡️ Middleware

Create middleware to protect routes or modify requests:

php Snowflake make:middleware AuthMiddleware

namespace App\Middleware;

use Core\Middleware;

class AuthMiddleware extends Middleware
{
    public function handle(): void
    {
        if (!isset($_SESSION['user'])) {
            header('Location: /login');
            exit;
        }
    }
}

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📧 Mailer

Send emails using the built-in Symfony Mailer integration:

use Services\MailService;

MailService::send(
    to: 'user@example.com',
    subject: 'Welcome to Frostel',
    body: view('emails.welcome')
);

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⚙️ Environment Configuration

All configuration is managed through .env:

APP_NAME=Frostel
APP_ENV=local
APP_URL=http://localhost:8000

DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=frostel
DB_USERNAME=root
DB_PASSWORD=

MAIL_HOST=smtp.mailtrap.io
MAIL_PORT=587
MAIL_USERNAME=
MAIL_PASSWORD=

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📋 Requirements

• PHP ^8.2
• Composer
• MySQL or compatible database

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📦 Dependencies

Package	Purpose
vlucas/phpdotenv	Environment variable loading
hekmatinasser/verta	Jalali/Persian date support
symfony/mailer	Email sending
symfony/http-client	HTTP client for external APIs

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📄 License

Frostel is open-source software licensed under the GPL-3.0 License.

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👤 Author

Built with ❤️ by amirithm-dev