Guide

Everything you need to build on Tiger — the architecture, the core concepts, and the day-to-day of writing modules, services, forms, and routes.

New here? Start with Why Tiger?, or jump straight to Your first module.

Start here

• Why Tiger? — the pitch, and who it's for.
• Getting started — the lay of the land.
• Install in 60 seconds — get a site running.
• Your first module · How to write your first module — the guided build.

Architecture & concepts

• The drop-in architecture — what you own vs. what composer update owns.
• Core concepts — the vocabulary.
• Modules — the unit of everything.
• Orgs, users & membership — multi-tenancy and the per-org cascade.
• Third-party libraries — vendoring and the dependency rules.

Building

• Building on Tiger — the developer workflow.
• Models & schema — the data layer and migrations.
• Forms & validation — Zend_Form + array config.
• Routing & pretty URLs — declared, not hand-registered.
• Webservices (the /api pattern) — the service layer.
• API discovery (OpenAPI) — self-describing endpoints.
• API tokens (stateless /api) — machine access.
• Building an admin screen — back-office surfaces.
• Custom fields — declarative field groups.

Auth & security

• Auth & sessions — who you are.
• Authorization (ACL) — what you're allowed to do.
• Crypto & secrets — keys, secrets, and safe storage.

Config & operations

• Config: .ini + DB overrides — eager .ini vs. lazy DB config.
• The bin/tiger console — the CLI.
• Deployment — shipping to a box.
• Logging — where output goes.
• Localization (i18n) — semantic keys and locales.
• Location & countries — geocoding and place data.
• Mail — sending email.

Presentation & distribution

• Theming & skins — the look.
• Custom menus — navigation.
• Marketplaces & sources — module sources and licensing.