Cakephp Boost

CakePHP Boost Plugin

A development tool to enhance AI-assisted coding within CakePHP projects by providing essential context, structure, and introspection capabilities.

Features

Phase 1 - MVP (Current)

• Documentation Search: Fast, full-text search of CakePHP documentation using SQLite FTS5
• Schema Introspection: View database schema in human-readable format
• MCP Server: Model Context Protocol server for AI assistants (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.)
• Console Commands: Simple CLI interface for indexing and searching documentation
• Sample Documentation: Pre-loaded with 20+ common CakePHP patterns and examples

Installation

For Development (within this sandbox)

The plugin is already loaded in this project. Just run:

# Index documentation (run once or when updating docs)
bin/cake boost_index --clear

# Search documentation
bin/cake boost_search "your query here"

For External Projects (when published)

composer require dereuromark/cakephp-boost --dev

Then add to your config/plugins.php:

'Boost' => ['onlyCli' => true],

Usage

Indexing Documentation

Index CakePHP Book documentation:

# Index all documentation
bin/cake boost_index

# Clear existing index and re-index
bin/cake boost_index --clear

# Index only specific sources
bin/cake boost_index --source book

Searching Documentation

Basic search:

bin/cake boost_search "belongsToMany"

Natural language queries:

bin/cake boost_search "how to save data"
bin/cake boost_search "how do I validate email fields"
bin/cake boost_search "what is the correct way to use transactions"

Filter by category:

bin/cake boost_search "validation" --category orm
bin/cake boost_search "controller" --category controller

Limit results:

bin/cake boost_search "query" --limit 5

Available Categories

• orm - Database, models, tables, associations
• controller - Controllers, components, request/response
• view - Templates, helpers, rendering
• validation - Form validation, rules
• authentication - User authentication
• authorization - Access control, permissions
• testing - PHPUnit tests, fixtures
• middleware - Middleware stack
• routing - Routes, prefixes
• email - Mailer, sending emails
• caching - Cache configuration and usage
• events - Event system
• console - CLI commands

MCP Server (AI Integration)

The plugin provides an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for AI assistants like Claude Code:

# Start the MCP server
php bin/cake boost_mcp_server

Available Tools:

• search_documentation - Search CakePHP docs with natural language
• get_database_schema - Get database schema information

Configuration for Claude Code:

Create .claude/mcp_config.json in your project:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cakephp-boost": {
      "command": "php",
      "args": ["bin/cake", "boost_mcp_server"]
    }
  }
}

See [MCPSETUP.md](MCPSETUP.md) for detailed configuration instructions.

How It Works

1. Indexing: The boost_index command parses CakePHP documentation and stores it in a SQLite database with full-text search (FTS5) enabled
2. Searching: The boost_search command performs fast full-text queries against the indexed documentation
3. Results: Returns relevant documentation snippets with titles, URLs, and context

Database

Documentation is stored in: tmp/boost/documentation.db

The database uses SQLite's FTS5 (Full-Text Search) with Porter stemming for intelligent word matching.

Current Limitations (MVP)

• Sample Data Only: Currently uses pre-defined documentation snippets
• No Real-Time Updates: Documentation must be manually re-indexed
• No API Docs: Only CakePHP Book content is indexed (API docs coming in Phase 2)
• Basic Search: Keyword-based search only (semantic search coming in Phase 2)

Roadmap

Phase 2 - Semantic Search (Planned)

• Generate embeddings for documentation using OpenAI or local models
• Vector similarity search for context-aware results
• Better understanding of natural language queries

Phase 3 - Guidelines & Integration (Planned)

• CakePHP 5.x coding guidelines
• Popular plugin guidelines (Tools, Shim, Authentication, etc.)
• Auto-generated context files for Claude Code

Phase 4 - MCP Server (Optional)

• Model Context Protocol server for AI assistants
• Real-time application introspection
• Database schema access for AI

Examples

Find Association Documentation

$ bin/cake boost_search "belongsToMany"

Found 1 results:

1. Associations - BelongsToMany [book]
   Category: orm
   URL: https://book.cakephp.org/5/en/orm/associations.html#belongstomany
   The belongsToMany association is used when two models are associated through a join table...

Find Validation Examples

$ bin/cake boost_search "validation"

Found 2 results:

1. Form Validation - Custom Validators [book]
   Category: validation
   URL: https://book.cakephp.org/5/en/core-libraries/validation.html#custom-validation-rules
   Create custom validation rules as methods in your Table class...

2. Validation Rules [book]
   Category: validation
   URL: https://book.cakephp.org/5/en/core-libraries/validation.html
   Add validation rules in your Table class validationDefault() method...

Contributing

This is currently an internal plugin in the Sandbox project. Once extracted to a separate repository, contributions will be welcome!

License

MIT License

Credits

Inspired by Laravel Boost

Source & license

This open-source MCP server is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: dereuromark
• Source: dereuromark/cakephp-boost
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.