API Integration Starter (PHP)

Production-ready starter template for API integrations in PHP: clean structure, .env config, cURL HTTP client, logging, error handling, and demo endpoints.

Built for real-world use cases: connecting external APIs, handling retries/errors, and keeping a clear audit trail (logs).

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✨ Features

• ✅ Simple, clean project structure (public/, src/, examples/)
• ✅ .env configuration via .env.example
• ✅ cURL-based HTTP client with consistent response shape
• ✅ File logging (storage/logs/app.log) in JSON lines
• ✅ Demo endpoints:
  • GET /health
  • POST /proxy → forwards payload to an external API (default: httpbin)

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🧭 Architecture (High Level)

flowchart LR
  A["Client / Postman"] -->|HTTP| B["public/index.php Router"]
  B --> C["Config - .env"]
  B --> D["Logger - JSON logs"]
  B --> E["HttpClient - cURL"]
  E --> F["External API"]
  D --> G["storage/logs/app.log"]

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🚀 Quick Start

1) Requirements

• PHP 8.0+ (recommended)

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2) Setup environment

cp .env.example .env

Edit .env if needed:

• API_BASE_URL
• API_KEY
• TIMEOUT
• LOG_PATH

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3) Run local server

php -S 127.0.0.1:8000 -t public

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🧪 Test Endpoints

✅ Healthcheck

curl http://127.0.0.1:8000/health

Expected response:

{
  "ok": true,
  "service": "api-integration-starter-php",
  "ts": "2026-02-15T00:00:00Z"
}

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✅ Proxy (Forward Request)

curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:8000/proxy \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"demo": true, "message": "Hello"}'

This will forward your JSON payload to:

${API_BASE_URL}/post
(default: https://httpbin.org/post)

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📁 Project Structure

api-integration-starter-php/
├─ public/
│  └─ index.php
├─ src/
│  ├─ Config.php
│  ├─ Logger.php
│  └─ Http/
│     └─ HttpClient.php
├─ examples/
│  └─ request-example.php
├─ .env.example
└─ README.md

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🪵 Logging

Logs are written as JSON lines to:

storage/logs/app.log (default)

Example log entry:

{
  "ts": "2026-02-15T00:00:00Z",
  "level": "INFO",
  "message": "HTTP request",
  "context": {
    "method": "POST",
    "url": "https://httpbin.org/post",
    "has_body": true
  }
}

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🔒 Notes on Security

This repo is intentionally safe by design:

• ✅ No real keys stored in code
• ✅ .env is ignored (keep secrets local)
• ✅ Demo flows use placeholder endpoints
• ✅ Clear separation between configuration and runtime logic

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🗺️ Roadmap

• Add retry with exponential backoff (idempotent-safe calls)
• Add correlation ID for request tracing
• Add webhook signature validation helper
• Add simple response caching example

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📬 Author

Rober Lopez
Backend & API Integration Specialist · Payments · Automation · UX/UI-minded Engineer

• 🌐 Website: https://roberlopez.com
• 💻 GitHub: https://github.com/kirito18
• 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/web-rober-lopez/