Production-Ready Laravel + Boson: Learnings

[asseti6]

First off, thank you for your hard work on what is clearly a complex and ambitious offering. The architecture is solid and the potential is tremendous.

My Experience

I've spent the better part of the last few weeks integrating Boson with a full production-level Laravel application (medium complexity — real-time updates via Reverb, cloud sync, background jobs, automated desktop upgrades, etc.). Once fully configured, it runs beautifully with very little performance difference compared to a native app on Windows, Linux, and macOS.

That said, getting to that level of polish required quite a bit of discovery and iteration:

• Background processes — Running queue workers, schedulers, and Reverb alongside the main app -- while these are Laravel specific, I'd imagine others would have issues getting background processes working quickly
• SSL/TLS handling — Self-signed cert generation for secure WebSocket connections in the laravel:// secure context or whatever app local http context is used
• Database path resolution — Handling the phar/SFX environment where paths need external mounting
• Config caching nuances — Runtime overrides for values that get baked in at build time
• Static asset caching — Adding proper Cache-Control, ETag, and 304 support to the FilesystemStaticProvider responses
• Performance tuning — Chromium flags, reducing middleware overhead, cache prewarming, etc.
• Desktop Branding — app build icon replacement / handling etc.

I ended up wrapping these solutions into isolated services, commands, and a structured bootstrap file for easier maintenance.

Why Does This Matter

I suspect most developers won't have the time (or patience) to work through all of this on their own, which means they may not experience how capable Boson truly is in its current state. This can absolutely run production-level applications today — but the path to get there isn't immediately obvious.

How Can I Help?

If useful, I'd be happy to give back by sharing what I've learned in whatever format is most useful, but I am not immediately sure what that would be. I don't want to presume what would be most valuable — you know the roadmap and community needs better than I do. Just wanted to open the conversation and see if the information would be useful to help project adoption. If not, that is completely fine as well but given the exceptional work you have done, I wanted to offer.

Thanks again for building this.

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App Environment:

• Laravel 12, Inertia v2, React 19
• Windows (primary), with testing on Linux and macOS
• Boson [version]
• PHP 8.4/8.5

[SerafimArts]

Database path resolution — Handling the phar/SFX environment where paths need external mounting

Doesn't the mount section during assembly solve this problem? 🤔

If useful, I'd be happy to give back by sharing what I've learned in whatever format is most useful, but I am not immediately sure what that would be.

Otherwise, it would be fantastic. The Laravel package currently serves as a "just there to get the app up and running." In my opinion, it's still far from being truly functional.

So if you have any way to improve it, your suggestions are welcome to be implemented in any form you find convenient.

I don't want to presume what would be most valuable — you know the roadmap and community needs better than I do

Unfortunately, I don't know. All decisions are made for fun, for the reason "why not?" :D

SSL/TLS handling — Self-signed cert generation for secure WebSocket connections in the laravel:// secure context or whatever app local http context is used

In general, you don't need web sockets. The internal IPS mechanism is faster and more efficient:

<?php

require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

$app = new \Boson\Application(new \Boson\ApplicationCreateInfo(
    schemes: ['laravel'],
));

// undirectional message from webview to php
$app->on(function(\Boson\WebView\Event\WebViewMessageReceived $e) {
    var_dump($e->message); // message payload

    $e->ack();
});

// bidirectional message
$app->webview->bindings->bind('example.foo', function (string $message): string {
    return $message . ' from PHP';
});

// undirectional message from php to webview (every 1 second)
$app->poller->timer(1.0, function () use ($app) {
    $now = \date('Y-m-d H:i:s');

    $app->webview->scripts->eval(<<<SCRIPT
        document.getElementById('textarea').value = 'Hello, now {$now}';
        SCRIPT);
});

$app->on(function(\Boson\WebView\Api\Schemes\Event\SchemeRequestReceived $e) {

    $e->response = new \Boson\Component\Http\Response(<<<'HTML'
        <!-- Undirectional (WebView to PHP) -->
        <button onclick="boson.io.send('message')">Send Message</button>

        <!-- Bidirectional -->
        <button id="button1" onclick="example.foo('message').then(function (result) {
            document.getElementById('button1').innerText = result;
        })">Send Message + Get Result</button>

        <!-- Undirectional (PHP to WebView output) -->
        <textarea id="textarea"></textarea>
        HTML);
});

$app->webview->url = 'laravel://home';

[SerafimArts]

Static asset caching — Adding proper Cache-Control, ETag, and 304 support to the FilesystemStaticProvider responses

I tried it, it doesn't work. Maybe I did something wrong... =\

There's a simpler trick: creating a virtual file system directly inside WebView. This looks more promising for optimization. However, work on it hasn't been completed yet https://github.com/boson-php/boson/blob/feature/vfs/src/FileSystem/VirtualFileSystemInterface.php