Creating an Addon
You can generate an addon with a console command:
php please make:addon example/my-addon
This will scaffold out everything you need to get started as a private addon within your site’s addons
directory.
Eventually, an addon may be available on Packagist and installable through Composer (and therefore live inside your vendor
directory). During development however, you can keep it on your local filesystem as a path repository.
If you don’t plan on distributing your addon or sharing it between multiple projects, you can take a simpler approach and just add things to your Laravel application.
What’s in an addon?
An addon consists of at least a composer.json
and a service provider. Your directory may be placed anywhere, but for the sake of this example, we’ll put it in addons/acme/example
addons/ acme/ example/ src/ ServiceProvider.php composer.jsonapp/content/config/public/ index.phpresourcescomposer.json
Composer.json
The composer.json is used by (you guessed it) Composer in order to install your package.
The extra.statamic
section is used by Statamic to know that it’s an addon and not just a standard Composer package.
The extra.laravel.providers
section what Laravel uses to load your service provider.
{ "name": "acme/example", "description": "Example Addon", "autoload": { "psr-4": { "Acme\\Example\\": "src" } }, "authors": [ { "name": "Jason Varga" } ], "support": { }, "extra": { "statamic": { "name": "Example", "description": "Example addon" }, "laravel": { "providers": [ "Acme\\Example\\ServiceProvider" ] } }}
Service Provider
The service provider is where all the various components of your addon get wired together.
You should make sure that your service provider extends Statamic’s Statamic\Providers\AddonServiceProvider
, and not Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider
. Statamic’s AddonServiceProvider
includes some bootstrapping and autoloading that isn’t included with Laravel’s service provider.
<?php namespace Acme\Example; use Statamic\Providers\AddonServiceProvider; class ServiceProvider extends AddonServiceProvider{ //}
The bootAddon
method should be used instead of boot
. They are the same except that it
makes sure to boot after Statamic has booted.
Installing your freshly created addon
If you ran the make:addon
command, this would have been taken care of for you.
Otherwise, in your project root’s composer.json
, add your package to the require
and repositories
sections, like so:
{ "require": { "acme/example": "*" }, "repositories": [ { "type": "path", "url": "addons/example" } ]
Run composer update from your project root (not your addon directory).
composer update
If you’ve been following correctly, you should see these two lines amongst a bunch of others.
Discovered Package: acme/exampleDiscovered Addon: acme/example
Your addon is now installed. You should be able to go to /cp/addons
and see it listed.
Installing an Addon
Public addons
A public addon is one available as a composer package on packagist.org. Simply require it with composer:
composer require vendor/package
Private addons
A private addon is one not on packagist.org. You will need to use a composer path repository.
Download the package to a directory of your choosing.
In your project root’s composer.json
, add the package to the require
and repositories
sections, like so:
{ ... "require": { ..., "acme/example": "*" }, ... "repositories": [ { "type": "path", "url": "addons/example" } ]
Run composer update from your project root:
composer update
After the composer package has been brought in, Statamic will automatically activate it and publish its assets.
Post-install commands
By default the vendor:publish
command will be run for you after statamic:install
, letting your assets be automatically published.
However, you can run other commands or custom code too using the afterInstalled
method:
public function bootAddon(){ Statamic::afterInstalled(function ($command) { $command->call('some:command'); });}
Registering Components
Statamic v5.28.0 and v5.29.0 introduced the concept of “autoloading” for most addon components.
For example: as long as your tags live in src/Tags
and your fieldtypes live in src/Fieldtypes
, they will be automatically registered by Statamic, without you needing to register them manually.
If your addon supports Statamic v5.28.0 or lower, you should continue registering components manually, like shown below. Otherwise, you can let Statamic do its thing 😎.
You may register your various addon components by adding their class names to corresponding arrays:
protected $tags = [ \Acme\Example\Tags\First::class, \Acme\Example\Tags\Second::class, // etc...]; protected $modifiers = [ //]; protected $fieldtypes = [ //]; protected $widgets = [ //]; protected $commands = [ //];
Assets
CSS and Javascript
The method of adding assets will differ slightly depending on whether you are using Vite or another build process. We recommend Vite.
Using Vite (recommended)
In your service provider, you may register your Vite config like this, adjusting the paths appropriately.
protected $vite = [ 'input' => [ 'resources/js/cp.js', 'resources/css/cp.css' ], 'publicDirectory' => 'resources/dist',];
Get more in-depth about how to use Vite in your addon
Using Webpack/Mix
In your service provider, you may register any number of stylesheets or scripts by providing their full paths.
protected $scripts = [ __DIR__.'/../resources/js/example.js']; protected $stylesheets = [ __DIR__.'/../resources/css/example.css'];
Statamic will load the respective files in the Control Panel. It will assume they exist in public/vendor/[vendor]/[package].js
and css
directories.
Publishables
You may also mark generic assets for publishing by providing a publishables
array with the full path to the origin and the destination directory.
protected $publishables = [ __DIR__.'/../resources/images' => 'images',];
Publishing assets
When using the $vite
, $scripts
, $stylesheets
, and $publishables
properties, these files will be made available to the artisan vendor:publish
command.
They will all be tagged using your addon’s slug.
Whenever the statamic:install
command is run (i.e. after running composer update
, etc) the following command will be run:
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=your-addon-slug --force
You can prevent these from being automatically published by adding a property to your provider:
protected $publishAfterInstall = false;
This may be useful if you need more control around groups of assets to be published, or if you’re using custom post-install commands.
Assets during development
During development, if you’re using Vite, the assets will be loaded through a Vite server and should “just work”.
If you’re using Webpack/Mix, rather than constantly running vendor:publish
, consider symlinking your addon’s resource
directory:
ln -s /path/to/addons/example/resources public/vendor/package
Routing
Registering Routes
You may register three types of routes in your service provider.
protected $routes = [ 'cp' => __DIR__.'/../routes/cp.php', 'actions' => __DIR__.'/../routes/actions.php', 'web' => __DIR__.'/../routes/web.php',];
As of Statamic v5.29.0, addon routes following the convention shown above will be automatically registered by Statamic.
If your addon supports Statamic v5.29 or lower, you should continue registering your route files manually, like shown below. Otherwise, you can let Statamic do its thing 😎.
Control Panel Routes
Control Panel routes will be automatically prefixed by /cp
(or whatever URL the control panel has been configured to use) and will have authorization applied.
We recommend prefixing routes with your addon’s name but we didn’t enforce this explicitly to give you a bit more flexibility.
Action Routes
Action routes will be prefixed by /!/addon-name
and are generally intended as front-end “actions” your addon may expose without being a prominent section of the website. For example, somewhere to process a form submission.
Web Routes
Web routes have no prefix and no Statamic middleware attached. They will be added at the root level, as if you were adding them to a standard Laravel app’s routes/web.php
file, giving you complete control. However, as a Laravel route, they will have the web
middleware attached.
Writing Routes
When referencing a controller in a route, it will automatically be namespaced to your addon’s root namespace.
"autoload": { "psr-4": { "Acme\\Example\\": "src" }},
Route::get('/', 'ExampleController@index'); // Acme\Example\ExampleController
If you’d prefer not to have separate route files, you can write routes in your service provider’s bootAddon
method.
public function bootAddon(){ $this->registerCpRoutes(function () { Route::get(...); }); $this->registerWebRoutes(function () { Route::get(...); }); $this->registerActionRoutes(function () { Route::get(...); });}
Other than that, you’re free to write routes as per any Laravel application.
Route Model Binding
Statamic uses route model binding to automatically convert some route parameters into usable objects.
Words aligning with core Statamic concepts will automatically be converted to their appropriate objects: collection
, entry
, taxonomy
, term
, asset_container
, asset
,global
, site
, revision
, form
, and user
You’re free to use these words as your route parameters, but be aware they will automatically attempt to convert to the respective objects. For example:
public function example(Request $request, $entry){ // Given a route of "/example/{entry}", when visiting "/example/123" // $entry will be an Entry object with an ID of 123. // There will be a 404 if an entry with an ID of 123 doesn't exist.}
Middleware
You may push your own middleware onto respective middleware groups using the $middlewareGroups
property.
The keys are the names of the groups, and the values are arrays of middleware classes to be applied.
protected $middlewareGroups = [ 'statamic.cp.authenticated' => [ YourCpMiddleware::class, AnotherCpMiddleware::class ], 'web' => [ YourWebMiddleware::class ],];
Available middleware groups are:
Group | Description |
---|---|
web |
Front-end web requests, defined in the project’s App\Http\Kernel class. |
statamic.web |
Statamic-specific front-end web requests. This includes routes that correspond to content (like entries), as well as manually defined routes using Route::statamic() . These will also have web middleware applied. |
statamic.cp |
All control panel requests (even ones not protected by authentication, like the login page). |
statamic.cp.authenticated |
Control panel routes behind authentication. Anything in there can assume there will be an authenticated user available. These will also have the statamic.cp middleware applied. |
Views
Any views located in your resources/views
directory will automatically be available to use in your code using your package name as the namespace.
/ src/ resources/ views/ foo.blade.php
// assuming your package is named vendor/my-addonreturn view('my-addon::foo');
If you want to customize the namespace, you can set the $viewNamespace
property on your provider:
protected $viewNamespace = 'custom';
return view('custom::foo');
Events
Statamic v5.35.0 introduced the concept of “autoloading” for event listeners.
As long as your event listener lives in src/Listeners
and the event is typehinted in the listener’s handle
or __invoke
method, they will be automatically registered by Statamic, without you needing to register them manually.
Subscribers will also be autoloaded, as long as they live in src/Subscribers
.
If your addon supports below Statamic v5.33.0, you should continue registering events and subscribers manually, like shown below. Otherwise, you can let Statamic do its thing 😎.
You may register any number of event listeners or subscribers the same way you would in a traditional Laravel application’s EventServiceProvider – by using a $listen
or $subscribes
array:
protected $listen = [ 'Acme\Example\Events\OrderShipped' => [ 'Acme\Example\Listeners\SendShipmentNotification', ],]; protected $subscribe = [ 'Acme\Example\Listeners\UserEventSubscriber',];
Consult the Laravel event documentation to learn how to define events, listeners, and subscribers.
Scheduling
To define a schedule from your addon, you can add a schedule
method just like you would typically see in a Laravel application’s App\Console\Kernel class.
protected function schedule($schedule){ $schedule->command('something')->daily();}
Consult the Laravel scheduling documentation to learn how to define your schedule.
Editions
An addon can have various editions which enable you to limit your features depending on which is selected.
For example, you could have a free edition with limited features, and an edition with extra features that requires a license.
Defining Editions
You can define your editions in your composer.json
. They should match the edition handles that you set up on the Marketplace.
{ "extra": { "statamic": { "editions": ["free", "pro"] } }}
The first edition is the default when a user hasn’t explicitly selected one. Your editions should be listed from least to most expensive because that’s the nice thing to do.
Feature Toggles
You can check for the configured edition in order to toggle features.
$addon = Addon::get('vendor/package'); if ($addon->edition() === 'pro') { //}
You don’t need to check whether a license is valid, Statamic does that automatically for you.
Update Scripts
You may register update scripts to help your users migrate data, etc. when new features are added or breaking changes are introduced.
For example, maybe you’ve added a new permission and want to automatically give all of your existing form admins that new permission. To do this, first register your update script in your addon’s service provider:
protected $updateScripts = [ \Acme\Example\Updates\UpdatePermissions::class,];
Then in your update script, you can extend UpdateScript
and implement the necessary methods:
use Statamic\UpdateScripts\UpdateScript; class UpdatePermissions extends UpdateScript{ public function shouldUpdate($newVersion, $oldVersion) { return $this->isUpdatingTo('1.2.0'); } public function update() { Role::all()->each(function ($role) { if ($role->hasPermission('configure forms')) { $role->addPermission('configure goat-survey-pro')->save(); } }); $this->console()->info('Permissions added successfully!'); }}
The shouldUpdate()
method helps Statamic determine when to run the update script. Feel free to use the isUpdatingTo()
helper method, or the provided $newVersion
and $oldVersion
variables to help you write this logic.
The update()
method is where your custom data migration logic happens. Feel free to use the console()
helper to output to the user’s console as well. In the above example, we assign the new configure goat-survey-pro
permission to all users who have the configure forms
permission.
That’s it! Statamic should now automatically run your update script as your users update their addons.
Testing
Statamic automatically scaffolds a PHPUnit test suite when you generate an addon with php please make:addon
.
To learn more about writing addon tests, please review our Testing in Addons guide.
Publishing to the Marketplace
Once your addon is ready to be shared, you can publish it on the Statamic Marketplace where it can be discovered by others.
Before you can publish your addon, you’ll need a couple of things:
- Publish your Composer package on packagist.org.
- Create a statamic.com seller account
- If you’re planning to charge for your addons, you’ll need to link connect your bank details to your seller account.
In your seller dashboard, you can create a product. There you’ll be able to link your Composer package that you created on Packagist, choose a price, write a description, and so on.
Products will be marked as drafts that you can preview and tweak until you’re ready to go.
Once published, you’ll be able to see your addon on the Marketplace and within the Addons area of the Statamic Control Panel.
Addons vs. Starter Kits
Both addons and starter kits can be used to extend the Statamic experience, but they have different strengths and use cases:
Addons
- Addons are installed via
composer
, like any PHP package - Addons live within your app’s
vendor
folder after they are installed - Addons can be updated over time
- Addon licenses are tied to your site
An example use case is a custom fieldtype maintained by a third party vendor. Even though the addon is installed into your app, you still rely on the vendor to maintain and update the addon over time.
Starters Kits
- Starter kits are installed via
statamic new
orphp please starter-kit:install
- Starter kits install pre-configured files and settings into your site
- Starter kits do not live as updatable packages within your apps
- Starter kit licenses are not tied to a specific site, and expire after a successful install
An example use case is a frontend theme with sample content. This is the kind of thing you would install into your app once and modify to fit your own style. You would essentially own and maintain the installed files yourself.