Introduction
This handbook is the developer-facing guide for the backend — a Laravel 12 application laid out as a Domain-Driven Design codebase. If you've shipped Laravel before, most of it will feel familiar; the parts that aren't familiar are documented here.
The point of the handbook is to make a new engineer productive on day one: pick up the repo, find the file you need, change it the way the rest of the team would change it, and open a PR that won't surprise the reviewer. It's also the source-of-truth for code review — what looks like a "personal preference" in another project is a documented rule here.
What's in each section
- Get Started — install, configure, ship your first PR, and deploy.
- Structure — every top-level directory of the repo, explained.
- Guide — the patterns the codebase uses (Actions, DTOs, Contracts, ...), the rules every change is held to, and the recipes for common tasks.
- Reference — the domain map.
Where to go first
- First day on the team? Read this page, then Installation, then Your first PR.
- Picking up a ticket? Skim Structure to find the right folder, then check the relevant chapter in the Guide.
- Reviewing a PR? Anti-patterns is the source-of-truth for what to flag.
- Looking for a domain? The DDD Map lists every domain with its DDD adherence and legacy footprint.
How to contribute to the handbook
If a chapter is unclear, missing, or wrong, fix it — see Contributing for the conventions. Every chapter has an Edit this page link in its right-hand panel.