HydePHP guide

# What running Hyde here means

Hyde is a static site generator, not a CMS. php hyde build reads Markdown and Blade and writes plain HTML into a folder called _site. Nothing PHP answers a request afterwards — PHP only runs during the build.

That shapes the whole setup. The build happens as a build command during deployment, and the root path points at _site rather than at the project folder. The PHP component still has to be booked, because the build needs it.

# Versions

Hyde 2 is the current major and needs PHP 8.2 or newer, so set the PHP version accordingly. Hyde 1 is still installable and has the same build command and the same output folder.

# Get ready

Have a local PHP development environment with PHP 8.2 or newer and Composer, plus a git repo to deploy from.

# Create an app at fortrabbit

Create a new app and pick HydePHP as software. The software template behind the preset sets the root path, the build commands and the SITE_URL variable described below, so there is less to configure afterwards.

# Install locally

$ composer create-project hyde/hyde my-site
$ cd my-site
$ php hyde build

The build writes _site. Serve it with any static server, or run php hyde serve for the realtime compiler while writing.

# Keep the compiled site out of the repo

_site is rebuilt on every deployment, so it belongs neither in git nor in the deploy package. Add it to .gitignore in the project root:

# .gitignore

# Composer, installed by the build command
/vendor

# Written by `hyde build` on every deployment
/_site

# Deploy

Connect the repo as described in the git deployment intro, then push. Two build commands run in order:

$ composer install --no-dev --prefer-dist --no-interaction --no-ansi --no-progress
$ php hyde build

The root path is _site, so the compiled HTML is what visitors reach.

# Set the site URL

Hyde writes relative permalinks unless it knows the address the site is served from, and it skips the sitemap and the RSS feed entirely. Set SITE_URL as an environment variable, including the protocol:

SITE_URL=https://www.my-site.tld

The software template presets this to the environment's main domain. Change it once a custom domain is the primary one, otherwise links keep pointing at the frbit.app address.

SITE_NAME is optional and names the site in the RSS feed and the meta tags.

# Writing content

Markdown files in _pages, _posts and _docs become pages; Blade views in resources/views provide the layout. All of it is code as far as the platform is concerned — it is committed, pushed, and compiled during deployment. There is no admin panel and nothing writes to the environment at runtime, so no rsync step and no writable folders to exclude.

# What a static site does not need

No MySQL component, since Hyde stores nothing. No jobs and no key-value store either. A Hyde app books PHP for the build plus storage and traffic, which is the leanest combination the platform offers.