vela

A native, container-free take on Laravel Herd for Linux. nginx + php-fpm + dnsmasq serve every folder as <name>.test; PHP/Node versions come from mise; databases and other services are opt-in addons.

Supports systemd distros: Arch family, Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora/RHEL, openSUSE.

WSL is not tested. WSL1 cannot work (no systemd). WSL2 needs systemd=true in /etc/wsl.conf and manual .test DNS setup, see USAGE.md. Windows browsers also need the mkcert CA imported by hand for HTTPS.

Install

./install.sh                      # from a clone
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iniandrew/vela/main/install.sh | bash

install.sh only fetches vela and puts it on your PATH, then runs vela install, which does the real work: distro packages (Arch, Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora/RHEL, openSUSE), mise, nginx/DNS/TLS setup, then asks which PHP versions to compile (or uses a PHP you already have from your distro, Homebrew, asdf or phpenv: vela use system, with a warning if it is affected by the PHP2Shell CVEs), plus Node, Xdebug and addons. Tools you already have are left alone. Rerun vela install any time.

Flags (accepted by both): --php=8.5,8.4 (first = default) --node=ask|lts|skip --xdebug=ask|yes|no --addons=ask|none|postgres@17,redis:podman --yes --deps-only.

PHP 8.2 to 8.5 must be at least 8.2.35 / 8.3.36 / 8.4.27 / 8.5.12 to be safe from CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619 (PHP2Shell); vela warns and asks before installing an affected version, and vela php:list flags installed ones.

Use

Full guide: USAGE.md.

cd ~/Vela && laravel new blog     # http://blog.test, no command needed
cd ~/code/app && vela link        # http://app.test
vela secure app                   # https via mkcert
vela isolate 8.4 --site=app       # per-site PHP (writes mise.local.toml)
vela sites

Run vela help for the full list.

Addons

vela service:available
vela service:add postgres 17
vela service:add minio --via podman --port 9100
vela service:list

Each addon is a systemd user unit. --via native (default) uses mise, a pinned download, or a source build; --via podman|docker runs the official image on 127.0.0.1. Data lives in ~/.local/share/vela/data/<id>.

Notes

• Ports 80/443 are bound by an unprivileged nginx via net.ipv4.ip_unprivileged_port_start=80.
• .test DNS: a vela0 dummy link routes only ~test to a local dnsmasq (systemd-resolved), or NetworkManager's dnsmasq plugin when resolved is off.
• MinIO no longer publishes binaries, so the native route compiles it with Go (a few minutes).
• Uninstall: vela uninstall [--purge].

Tests

tests/regen.sh     # sandboxed, no sudo, stubs mise/nginx
tests/smoke.sh     # needs an installed vela