yiisoft/yii2-app-basic

Yii 2 Basic Project Template

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github.com/yiisoft/yii2-app-basic

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pkg:composer/yiisoft/yii2-app-basic

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2.0.55 2026-05-09 15:03 UTC

BSD-3-Clause bd3f472624b03537cc5839387e8a422f2d8cdca6

frameworkbasicyii2project template


README

👁 Yii Framework

Yii 2 Basic Project Template


Yii 2 Basic Project Template is a skeleton Yii 2 application best for rapidly creating small projects.

The template contains the basic features including user login/logout and a contact page. It includes all commonly used configurations that would allow you to focus on adding new features to your application.

👁 Latest Stable Version
👁 Total Downloads
👁 build
👁 codecov
👁 Static Analysis

👁 Web Application Basic

Docker

👁 Apache

DIRECTORY STRUCTURE

 assets/ contains assets definition
 commands/ contains console commands (controllers)
 config/ contains application configurations
 controllers/ contains Web controller classes
 mail/ contains view files for e-mails
 models/ contains model classes
 runtime/ contains files generated during runtime
 tests/ contains various tests for the basic application
 vendor/ contains dependent 3rd-party packages
 views/ contains view files for the Web application
 web/ contains the entry script and Web resources

REQUIREMENTS

The minimum requirement by this project template that your Web server supports PHP 8.2.

INSTALLATION

Important

  • The minimum required PHP version of Yii is PHP 8.2.

Install via Composer

If you do not have Composer, you may install it by following the instructions at getcomposer.org.

You can then install this project template using the following command:

composer create-project --prefer-dist yiisoft/yii2-app-basic basic

Now you should be able to access the application through the following URL, assuming basic is the directory directly under the Web root.

http://localhost/basic/web/

Install from an Archive File

Extract the archive file downloaded from yiiframework.com to a directory named basic that is directly under the Web root.

Set cookie validation key in config/web.php file to some random secret string:

'request' => [
 // !!! insert a secret key in the following (if it is empty) - this is required by cookie validation
 'cookieValidationKey' => '<secret random string goes here>',
],

You can then access the application through the following URL:

http://localhost/basic/web/

Install with Docker

Update your vendor packages

docker-compose run --rm php composer update --prefer-dist

Run the installation triggers (creating cookie validation code)

docker-compose run --rm php composer install 

Start the container

docker-compose up -d

You can then access the application through the following URL:

http://127.0.0.1:8000

Run tests inside the container

docker compose exec -T php vendor/bin/codecept build
docker compose exec -T php vendor/bin/codecept run

NOTES:

  • Minimum required Docker engine version 17.04 for development (see Performance tuning for volume mounts)
  • The default configuration uses a host-volume in your home directory ~/.composer-docker/cache for Composer caches

CONFIGURATION

Database

Edit the file config/db.php with real data, for example:

return [
 'class' => 'yii\db\Connection',
 'dsn' => 'mysql:host=localhost;dbname=yii2basic',
 'username' => 'root',
 'password' => '1234',
 'charset' => 'utf8',
];

NOTES:

  • Yii won't create the database for you, this has to be done manually before you can access it.
  • Check and edit the other files in the config/ directory to customize your application as required.
  • Refer to the README in the tests directory for information specific to basic application tests.

TESTING

Tests are located in tests directory. They are developed with Codeception PHP Testing Framework. By default, there are 3 test suites:

  • unit
  • functional
  • acceptance

Tests can be executed by running

vendor/bin/codecept run --env php-builtin

The command above will execute unit and functional tests. Unit tests are testing the system components, while functional tests are for testing user interaction.

Acceptance tests

The acceptance suite is configured in tests/Acceptance.suite.yml.

Acceptance tests (PhpBrowser)

By default, acceptance tests use the PhpBrowser module and run against the built-in PHP web server started via the php-builtin environment.

# run all tests with built-in web server
composer tests

# run acceptance tests only
vendor/bin/codecept run Acceptance --env php-builtin

Acceptance tests (WebDriver + Selenium)

To run acceptance tests in a real browser, switch the acceptance suite to use the WebDriver module. tests/Acceptance.suite.yml contains an example WebDriver configuration (commented).

  1. Download and start Selenium Server.
  2. Install the corresponding browser driver (for example. GeckoDriver or ChromeDriver).
  3. Update tests/Acceptance.suite.yml to enable WebDriver and disable PhpBrowser.
  4. Run:
vendor/bin/codecept run Acceptance --env php-builtin

Code coverage support

Code coverage is configured in codeception.yml. You can run your tests and collect coverage with the following command:

#collect coverage for all tests
vendor/bin/codecept run --coverage --coverage-html --coverage-xml --env php-builtin

#collect coverage only for unit tests
vendor/bin/codecept run Unit --coverage --coverage-html --coverage-xml --env php-builtin

#collect coverage for unit and functional tests
vendor/bin/codecept run Functional,Unit --coverage --coverage-html --coverage-xml --env php-builtin

You can see code coverage output under the tests/Support/output directory.

Documentation

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