Laravel Pint Patterns

Code style automation patterns for Laravel Pint, including mode semantics, auto-rewrite rules, and PHPStan integration.

When to Use

• Setting up Pint in a new Laravel project
• Resolving pre-commit hook failures from Pint rewrites
• Writing PHPUnit test method names that survive Pint
• Working around PHP version-conditional constants under PHPStan
• Adopting a lint gate on a codebase with existing style debt

Pint Mode Semantics

Laravel Pint wraps PHP-CS-Fixer with two modes:

The pre-commit hook typically runs pint --test. When the hook fails, run pint (no flag) locally to autofix, then re-stage.

Two-Pass Idempotency

Pint is not guaranteed to be idempotent in a single pass — some rules' fixes expose other rules' violations. After running vendor/bin/pint, run vendor/bin/pint --test immediately. If it reports failures, run pint again until the state stabilizes. Without this, CI can fail after a single local pass that appeared clean.

Same applies to PHP-CS-Fixer, Rector, and other AST-rewriting formatters.

php_unit_method_casing Rule

When pint.json includes '@PHPUnit75Migration:risky', Pint enforces snake_case PHPUnit method names. camelCase embedded in test description text (referencing SDK method names like handleSubscriptionUpdated) is rewritten automatically. Writing snake_case from the start avoids the pre-commit-fail → autofix → restage round-trip. Confirm this rule is in the project's pint.json before assuming it applies.

fully_qualified_strict_types Rule

When enabled, Pint hoists \Vendor\Class::CONST FQN literals to use imports. Run ./vendor/bin/pint <file> after any manual edit introducing FQN literals to apply the rewrite before committing. See reference.md for a before/after example.

PHPStan constant() Indirection

Version-conditional class constants produce PHPStan errors when a class that doesn't exist on the CI PHP version appears in a ternary:

// PHPStan cannot resolve Pdo\Mysql::ATTR_SSL_CA on PHP 8.2 CI:
$attr = defined('Pdo\\Mysql::ATTR_SSL_CA')
    ? \Pdo\Mysql::ATTR_SSL_CA           // PHPStan fails here on PHP 8.2
    : PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_SSL_CA;

Route both branches through constant() so PHPStan sees them as dynamic strings:

$attr = defined('Pdo\\Mysql::ATTR_SSL_CA')
    ? constant('Pdo\\Mysql::ATTR_SSL_CA')   // PHPStan: dynamic string, passes
    : constant('PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_SSL_CA');

This avoids adding ignoreErrors entries to phpstan.neon for cases that are correct at runtime.

Adopting a Lint Gate on an Existing Codebase

Run vendor/bin/pint once across the entire codebase and commit as a standalone style: commit before turning on pint --test as a CI gate. Future PRs keep only their own changes Pint-clean, rather than a first PR with 1400 legacy-formatting lines mixed into the diff.

Anti-Patterns

See reference.md for PHP tooling map (format/lint/type-check/test/refactor) and Larastan level guidance.

Related

• laravel-ci-mysql — CI integration context where the pint --test --dirty lint-gate-silently-disabled bug surfaces
• github-actions-cicd — PHP/Laravel multi-job CI workflow shape that wraps Pint as the lint step