[6.x] Workbench

[riasvdv]

A barebones setup of Workbench for testing the package while developing without needing a separate "host" application.

The current seeder creates the following:

• fieldLayout with just an EntryTitleField
• Page entry type with this field layout
• Home single
• Pages structure
• Posts channel

I'll probably improve this further when I've had a chance to use it a bit more.

The test changes / fixes are related to the Laravel request not being available in tests.

Workbench

Workbench allows you to run a live Craft CMS application during development without needing a separate Laravel project. This is useful for manually testing features, debugging, and exploring the CMS.

Quick Start

composer run serve

This starts a development server at http://127.0.0.1:8000.

How It Works

Workbench uses Orchestra Testbench to bootstrap a minimal Laravel application with Craft CMS loaded. The setup consists of:

Directory	Purpose
vendor/orchestra/testbench-core/laravel	The Laravel application skeleton
workbench/	Your development workspace for routes, views, seeders, and config
testbench.yaml	Configuration that ties everything together

When you run composer run serve, Workbench:

1. Loads the skeleton
2. Registers all service providers from testbench.yaml
3. Discovers routes, commands, and config from workbench/
4. Starts the PHP development server

Directory Structure

workbench/
├── app/
│   └── Models/           # Eloquent models for testing
├── config/               # Custom config overrides
├── database/
│   ├── factories/        # Model factories
│   ├── migrations/       # Test migrations
│   └── seeders/          # Database seeders
├── resources/
│   └── views/            # Blade/Twig views
└── routes/
    ├── web.php           # Web routes (auto-discovered)
    └── console.php       # Artisan commands (auto-discovered)

Configuration

The testbench.yaml file controls Workbench behavior:

providers:                   # Service providers to load
  - CraftCms\Cms\Providers\CraftServiceProvider
  - CraftCms\Yii2Adapter\Yii2ServiceProvider
  # ...

workbench:
  start: /                   # Default route when opening the browser
  install: true              # Run Laravel's default migrations
  sync:                      # Symlink directories into the skeleton
    - from: resources
      to: public/vendor/craft
  discovers:
    web: true                # Auto-load workbench/routes/web.php
    commands: true           # Auto-load workbench/routes/console.php
    config: true             # Auto-load workbench/config/*.php

Running artisan commands

vendor/bin/testbench migrate
vendor/bin/testbench tinker
vendor/bin/testbench route:list

Rebuilding the workbench

composer run build

This runs the build recipes defined in testbench.yaml.

Further Reading

• Workbench Documentation
• Testbench Configuration

[riasvdv]

@brianjhanson I had to return early here if not installed because the installer was throwing exceptions that there was no site.

Might want to double-check what is needed for the installer here or if just doing parent::share is enough

[brianjhanson]

I don't think the installer needs any of this stuff at the moment so this should be good. I've made a similar change in my branches but apparently forgot to commit it 🤦

[brianjhanson]

Would we be able to point Playwright tests at this?

[riasvdv]

Would we be able to point Playwright tests at this?

I'd maybe look into https://pestphp.com/docs/browser-testing as that runs on Playwright but is fully integrated with the test environment

[brianjhanson]

Would we be able to point Playwright tests at this?

I'd maybe look into https://pestphp.com/docs/browser-testing as that runs on Playwright but is fully integrated with the test environment

Yeah, I tried to get that working but didn't have any luck on my first attempt. I forget exactly what I ran int though.

The other piece is that we already have some e2e tests written with Playwright that it would be good to point at 6.x and not have to rewrite in Pest