Overview

This release introduces major upgrades to PHP 8.4, adds multi-architecture support, updates to used tools and deps, as well as new features!

Version Upgrades

• PHP 8.1 → 8.4
• Alpine 3.16 → 3.21
• Nginx 1.21 → 1.28
• Xdebug 3.1.3 → 3.5.0
• Docker Compose V2: Migrated to modern compose syntax (removed deprecated version field)

New Features

Multi-Architecture Support

• CI/CD workflows updated to test and build for both architectures

Performance Enhancements

• JIT Compilation: Enabled by default with tracing mode for optimal performance
• OPcache File Cache: Added file-based caching for faster PHP process restarts
• Improved PHP configuration with optimized defaults for production workloads

Framework Support

• Laravel Demo: Added full Laravel demo application support alongside existing Symfony demo
• Unified demo commands with namespace structure (demo/symfony/*, demo/laravel/*)

Improvements

• OS Package Upgrade Trigger: Added cache-busting mechanism for security updates

Developer Experience

• Simplified Makefile by removing deprecated compose prefix commands
• Improved development PHP configuration with better OPcache settings for hot-reloading

Docs

• Updated README.md with few instructions on how to use the Template.

🐛 Bug Fixes