CLI: the playground

php artisan expression:playground

Opens an interactive REPL against a live Engine and a context you build up as you go — the fastest way to check what an expression does before storing it.

$ php artisan expression:playground

expr › /fake
Fake context generated under "trigger". Try: trigger.items.filter(current.active).map(current.name)

expr › trigger.items.filter(current.active).map(current.name)
=> ["voluptatibus tenetur","placeat odio","eum et"]  (array, 3.12ms)
   chainable: all, any, avg, chunk, contains, count, diff …+30 more

expr › trigger.name.upper(
ParserException: Unexpected token '' at position 19.
  trigger.name.upper(
                     ^

Type an expression to evaluate it. A line containing {{ and }} is treated as a template and run through resolve(); anything else is run through evaluate(). Each result shows its type and timing, and — for non-template results — a preview of what can be chained next. Parse and lex errors point a caret at the offending character.

Options

Option	Effect
--strict	Start the engine in strict mode
--context=<file>	Preload a JSON file as the starting context

php artisan expression:playground --strict --context=storage/sample-trigger.json

Commands

Command	Description
/help	List all commands
/block	Enter multi-line code-block mode (run()); a blank line executes
/context, /ctx	Print the current context as JSON
/set <path> <value>	Set a context value — value may be JSON (/set trigger.tags ["a","b"]) or a bare word
/clear	Reset the context to empty
/import <file>	Merge a JSON file into the context
/export <file>	Write the current context to a JSON file
/factory <Model::class> [count]	Generate context from an Eloquent factory — uses ->make(), never touches the database
/fake	Populate trigger with built-in demo data (requires fakerphp/faker)
/methods [type]	List chainable methods, optionally filtered by type
/functions	List available functions
/suggest <expr>	Evaluate <expr> and show its type and chainable methods
/keys <expr>	Evaluate <expr> (a list) and show the union of its item keys
/strict	Toggle strict mode
/history	Show the expressions run this session
/exit, /quit	Leave

/fake requires fakerphp/faker:

composer require fakerphp/faker --dev

Without it, use /factory with your own models, /set, or /import instead.

Notes

• The engine is built from your published config/expression-engine.php, with --strict / /strict layered on top.
• /factory needs an Eloquent model with an associated factory; the generated records are never persisted.
• Arrow-key history and line editing are available when PHP's readline extension is present.