PHPStan Static Analysis

Status: ✅ Active | Version: 01.00.00 | Last Updated: 2026-05-07

Overview

PHPStan static analysis is integrated into the Joomla Extension CI workflow as the static-analysis job. It runs after lint-and-validate passes and catches type errors, undefined methods, incorrect return types, and other bugs that PHP lint misses.

Configuration

Default Behavior (No Config File)

If no phpstan.neon exists in the repo, PHPStan runs at level 3 (type inference) against src/, htdocs/, or lib/.

Custom Config

Create phpstan.neon in the repo root:

parameters:
    level: 5
    paths:
        - src
    excludePaths:
        - src/vendor
    ignoreErrors:
        - '#Call to an undefined method#'

Analysis Levels

Level	What It Checks
0	Basic checks (unknown classes, functions, methods)
1	Possibly undefined variables
2	Unknown methods on `$this`
3	Default — return types, type inference
4	Dead code, always true/false
5	Argument types
6-9	Increasingly strict

Behavior

Non-blocking: Uses continue-on-error: true — failures are reported but don't block PRs
Incremental adoption: Start at level 3, increase as codebase improves
Auto-install: PHPStan is installed if not in composer dependencies

Changelog

Version	Date	Changes
01.00.00	2026-05-07	Initial release — level 3 default, non-blocking