Add Joomla as Project Type

[renekreijveld]

I am a professional Joomla developer and recently started using DDEV for local development. Since Joomla 4.0 (the current stable release is Joomla 6.0.3), Joomla ships with a built-in REST API based on the JSON:API specification, accessible under the /api endpoint.

When creating a new DDEV project there is currently no Joomla-specific project type available, so the natural fallback is to choose php as the project type. Joomla runs fine with this setup using Nginx as the web server, with one notable exception: the API functionality does not work out of the box. The default nginx.conf provided by DDEV lacks the routing rule required to pass API requests through to Joomla's front controller.

To get the API working, the Nginx configuration needs the following addition:

# Joomla REST API support
location /api/ {
    try_files $uri $uri/ /api/index.php?$args;
}

While adding a custom Nginx configuration override per project is a workable workaround, it is an extra manual step that is easy to miss and needs to be repeated for every new Joomla project.

Would it be feasible to add a dedicated Joomla project type to DDEV, with Nginx settings optimised for Joomla 5 and 6 out of the box? This would give Joomla developers a first-class experience in DDEV — including full API support — from the moment they run ddev config, without any manual configuration required.

[rfay]

We'd be delighted to have a Joomla project type. Full details on how to add one are at https://docs.ddev.com/en/stable/developers/project-types/

There are lots of resources on how to contribute to DDEV on https://ddev.com/blog, it's not hard!

[stasadev]

Joomla runs fine with this setup using Nginx as the web server, with one notable exception: the API functionality does not work out of the box.

That's probably why we have apache-fpm in our quickstart https://docs.ddev.com/en/stable/users/quickstart/#joomla

---

And I agree it would be much better to have a specific project type for Joomla.

https://docs.joomla.org/Nginx

Unless you have specific requirements that demand a heavy Web server like Apache, you are much better off using Nginx.

[renekreijveld]

I agree running Joomla 5/6 on NginX with DDEV performs really well. I did test a Joomla 6 site with apache-fpm and .htaccess enabled and then the API works out of the box.

In October 2026 we will have the Joomla World Conference and I sent in a proposal for a talk on local Joomla development with DDEV and it would be nice if we would have a Joomla Project Type for DDEV.

I have no problem creating a DDEV nginx config specifically for Joomla 5/6 but I have no experience in Go development. So I will see how far I can get.

[stasadev]

Thanks! It doesn't really matter if you know Go or not. Most of the time you just copy and paste code from existing project types and remove the settings that don't apply to Joomla. We'll also help with the PR once it's ready for review.

[rfay]

AI is really good with things like this too. There are a bunch of examples, and there's a full set of docs.

[renekreijveld]

With the help of Claude AI I managed to create a 'joomla' project type. I built a local ddev executable and tested that and it works perfect. I can now query the api endpoints without any modifications. All together these files were modified:

pkg/devapp/apptypes.go (new element added to appTypeMatrix)
pkg/devapp/schema.json (new type was added to properties)
pkg/nodeps/values.go (new App type const was added)

The following new files were created:

pkg/devapp/joomla.go
pkg/devapp/webserver_config_assets/nginx-site-joomla.conf (nginx file for joomla with /api support)

How can we proceed from here?

When I created a local Joomla 6 based website I also found that two php.ini settings were not optimal for Joomla. So then I thought if would be possible to automatically distribute a joomla.ini in the .ddev/php folder when a 'joomla' project is created so these settings are optimal for Joomla from the start.

According to Claude AI it is technically possible to do this in the following way:

1. Add a postConfigAction to joomla.go that writes a joomla.ini file to .ddev/php/
2. The file would start with ; #ddev-generated so DDEV knows it's managed
3. If the user removes that header, DDEV won't overwrite their customizations

What do you think about this idea?

[stasadev]

php.ini settings were not optimal for Joomla

What settings are we talking about? Please note that we don't focus on production configs in DDEV.

All PHP configuration is managed in https://github.com/ddev/ddev/tree/main/containers/ddev-php-base/ddev-php-files/etc/php

[renekreijveld]

There are 2 ini settings that Joomla 'complains' about during installation. Joomla likes to have the following alterations:

display_errors = off
output_buffering = off

Error display is handled by a setting in the Joomla backend admin interface.

[stasadev]

I didn't see these warnings when trying to follow https://docs.ddev.com/en/stable/users/quickstart/#joomla

(Although I see "Warning The PHP temporary folder is not set." afterwards in https://my-joomla-site.ddev.site/administrator/index.php?option=com_installer&view=warnings)

Perhaps you could open a PR at first, and we will continue there, having something to work on.

[renekreijveld]

Perhaps you could open a PR at first, and we will continue there, having something to work on.

Do you mean a PR to get the joomla Project Type in?

[renekreijveld]

I didn't see these warnings when trying to follow https://docs.ddev.com/en/stable/users/quickstart/#joomla

That is because you ran the installation from the commandline. When you run the installation from the browser after the last installation step you see this:

[rfay]

Yes @renekreijveld your path forward is to open a PR here for discussion. We can't really respond to things you describe. These usually take a little while to get reviewed, updated, finalized, but it will be good to have it in and released before your event. Thanks for working on this!

[renekreijveld]

I created a PR to add Joomla support by adding the new joomla project type:

• feat: add joomla project type #8226