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Lite Apps: The Setup Contract ​

Leaf modules are configured automatically in MVC apps: mvc-core knows where views, storage, and the database live, so it wires every module at boot. A lite app has no imposed structure, so there is nowhere for Leaf to safely assume paths, you write that wiring yourself, once, at the top of index.php. This is by design, not a gap. This file is the complete contract: what MVC would have configured for you, in copy-paste form.

A lite app that uses the database, the views, and Vite starts like this:

php
<?php

require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

db()->connect([
    'dbtype' => 'sqlite',
    'dbname' => __DIR__ . '/db.sqlite',
]);

// Lite views live in `views/`, not the MVC default of `app/views/`.
// Without `views.cache`, compiled blade files land in the project root.
app()->config('views.path', 'views');
app()->config('views.cache', __DIR__ . '/storage/cache');

// ... routes ...

app()->run();

Newly scaffolded apps (cli 5.0.6+) get the views config written into index.php by leaf view:install. Everything below is per-module detail.

Database ​

db()->connect([...]) once, before any query. Every module that needs the database (auth, session-on-db, etc.) picks up this connection automatically, connect is the only wiring auth needs in a lite app.

Auth ​

Session-only auth needs no signing secret (auth 5.1.2+), tokens are only minted if you read them, and reading them without a secret tells you exactly what to set. Remember that lite apps do NOT load .env files (no dotenv loader ships), so AUTH_TOKEN_SECRET=... in a file does nothing: export it in the real environment or set token.secret in config. Point the middleware redirects at routes you actually have: auth()->config(['redirect.login' => '/login', 'redirect.guest' => '/']), the defaults are MVC scaffold paths. And validate registration input yourself with request()->validate() before calling auth()->register(); auth only checks credentials and uniqueness.

Views (Blade / BareUI / Inertia) ​

views.path tells every engine where templates live; views.cache is where compiled blade goes (inertia 5.0.1+ defaults it to storage/cache and creates it, but setting it explicitly keeps the path intentional). Inertia's root shell is views/_inertia.blade.php, written by leaf view:install.

Vite ​

leafs/vite 5.0.1+ defaults match a root-served lite app: the hot file and build/ directory in the project root, assets served from /build. If your layout differs (or you are on 5.0), configure it explicitly:

php
\Leaf\Vite::config([
    'hotFile' => __DIR__ . '/hot',  // written by the dev server when running
    'build' => 'build',             // filesystem path, relative to cwd — never absolute
    'assets' => '/build',           // the URL prefix browsers request
]);

leaf install schema works in lite apps, it brings its own database layer. Wire it with an Illuminate connection and you get the same YAML schema files MVC uses, instead of hand-writing CREATE TABLE:

php
$capsule = new \Illuminate\Database\Capsule\Manager();
$capsule->addConnection(['driver' => 'sqlite', 'database' => __DIR__ . '/db.sqlite']);
$capsule->setAsGlobal();
$capsule->bootEloquent();

\Leaf\Schema::setDbConnection($capsule);
\Leaf\Schema::migrate(__DIR__ . '/database/users.yml');   // one call per schema file

Run that from a small migrate.php script (or a guarded route in dev). Schema file format, column types, and seeds are documented in mvc.md, the format is identical in lite apps.

What stays MVC-only ​

g:*, scaffold:*, and db:* console commands need the MVC console and do not exist in lite apps (leaf up migrates you to MVC when you want them). Everything else, auth, session, cookies, mail, cors, cache, date, fs, works in lite apps with no wiring beyond the database connection above.