Installation

Requirements

• PHP 8.3 or higher
• Pest 4.0+ and/or PHPUnit 11.0+

TestLink supports both frameworks individually or together in hybrid projects.

Install via Composer

TestLink uses a two-package architecture:

# Production dependency - attributes for production code
composer require testflowlabs/test-attributes

# Dev dependency - CLI tools, scanners, validators
composer require --dev testflowlabs/testlink

Why Two Packages?

The test-attributes package must be a production dependency because:

• #[TestedBy] attributes are placed on production code (services, controllers, models)
• #[LinksAndCovers] and #[Links] attributes may reference production classes
• PHP needs these attribute classes available when autoloading your code

The testlink package can be a dev dependency because:

• It only provides CLI tools (testlink report, testlink validate, testlink sync)
• These tools run during development and CI/CD, not in production
• It includes scanners, validators, and sync functionality

Important

If you install testlink as a dev dependency but don't install test-attributes as a production dependency, your application will fail to load production classes that use #[TestedBy] attributes in production environments.

Verify Installation

After installation, verify the CLI is working:

testlink --help

You should see:

TestLink - Test Coverage Traceability

USAGE
  testlink <command> [options]

COMMANDS
  report      Show coverage links report
  validate    Validate coverage link synchronization
  sync        Sync coverage links across test files

Detected frameworks: pest, phpunit

Framework Setup

Pest

To enable linksAndCovers() and links() method chaining, add to your tests/Pest.php:

// tests/Pest.php
use TestFlowLabs\TestLink\Runtime\RuntimeBootstrap;

RuntimeBootstrap::init();

Now you can use:

test('creates a user', function () {
    // ...
})->linksAndCovers(UserService::class.'::create');

PHPUnit

No additional setup required. Just use the attributes:

use TestFlowLabs\TestingAttributes\LinksAndCovers;

class UserServiceTest extends TestCase
{
    #[LinksAndCovers(UserService::class, 'create')]
    public function test_creates_user(): void
    {
        // ...
    }
}

Hybrid Projects (Pest + PHPUnit)

If you use both frameworks, set up the Pest bootstrap. PHPUnit will work automatically:

// tests/Pest.php
use TestFlowLabs\TestLink\Runtime\RuntimeBootstrap;

RuntimeBootstrap::init();

IDE Support

PhpStorm

PhpStorm automatically recognizes PHP 8 attributes. If needed:

1. Invalidate caches and restart (File → Invalidate Caches)
2. Ensure the vendor directory is indexed

VS Code

Install PHP Intelephense or PHP Tools extension for attribute support.