Capell quickstart

Use this path to evaluate the current 1.x foundation in a fresh Laravel application. It installs Core, Admin, Frontend, Installer, and Marketplace, creates a site and administrator, seeds demo content, generates frontend assets, and runs the install health summary.

The current 1.x Capell Foundation release is MIT-licensed and available through public Packagist packages without a Capell account. Paid marketplace packages use separate commercial terms and entitlement-scoped Composer access.

For an existing application, use the Install guide and take a database and media backup before running migrations.

Before you start

Allow about ten minutes for the first Composer install.

Requirement	Supported value
PHP	8.4+
Laravel	13.x
Filament	Installed by the selected Capell Admin package; supported line `^5.7.6`
Node.js	20+
Composer	2.7+
Database	MySQL 8+, MariaDB 10.5+, PostgreSQL, or SQLite

Required PHP extensions: fileinfo, intl, mbstring, openssl, curl, simplexml, and either gd or imagick.

Capell renders through this Laravel application. This quickstart does not create a hosted Capell account or a public content-delivery API.

1. Create the Laravel application

composer create-project laravel/laravel capell-site
cd capell-site
cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate

Configure APP_URL and a database in .env. SQLite is enough for a disposable local evaluation:

touch database/database.sqlite

APP_URL=http://localhost:8000
DB_CONNECTION=sqlite
QUEUE_CONNECTION=sync

2. Run the guided installer

Require the public Installer package first. Do not run filament:install --panels separately: Admin is one of the packages selected and configured by capell:install.

composer require capell-app/installer
php artisan capell:install --demo --url=http://localhost:8000

For a normal evaluation, accept the full foundation selection and the default theme. The installer asks for:

Prompt	Local evaluation answer
Package selection	All foundation packages
Theme	Default
Site URL	`http://localhost:8000`
Administrator	Create one with an email and strong local password
Which caches would you like to clear?	Accept the preselected defaults
Welcome route	Yes for a fresh demo application

The cache prompt is a multiselect of individual cache keys, not a yes/no question. Passing --clear-cache selects all of them and skips the prompt.

The final output is part of the install contract. A healthy run ends in this order:

Capell Install Health Summary
All checks passed.
✓ Installation complete!
Capell Install Handoff

If a required package lifecycle, asset build, permission sync, or health check fails, the command exits non-zero and withholds the success message. Follow the printed Fix: instruction, then rerun the installer; do not treat a partial run as production-ready.

The handoff names the installed packages, safe Admin and public URLs, first-page state, warnings, and the next verified action. It does not require a Capell account or send a telemetry identity. CI can persist the same redacted result with --handoff-json=storage/app/capell-install-handoff.json.

Reproducible non-interactive smoke command

CI and release verification can use the same public path without prompts:

php artisan capell:install \
  --fresh=force \
  --demo \
  --package-mode=all \
  --theme=default \
  --seed \
  --url=http://localhost:8000 \
  --name="Capell evaluation" \
  [email protected] \
  --password='replace-this-local-password' \
  --clear-cache \
  --install-welcome-route \
  --no-interaction

This command is destructive because --fresh=force rebuilds the database. Use it only in a disposable application or isolated CI database.

3. Start the application

php artisan serve

Open:

http://localhost:8000/admin and sign in with the administrator created by the installer;
http://localhost:8000 to see the seeded public page.

The Admin package should present a styled Pages workspace—not an unstyled Laravel or Filament shell:

Pages list with seeded pages, publish status, page types, and actions

Light · Dark

The seeded Pages workspace proves the Admin package, demo records, permissions, and Filament styling are working together.

4. Publish and recover one change

In Pages, open a seeded page, change a short piece of text, and save it. Preview the page, publish the change, then confirm the public URL shows it.

Open the page’s history relation after the save. Inspect the before/after change, preview a rollback, and cancel it unless you deliberately want to test page-only recovery. Page rollback restores the page and its owned content relationships; it does not restore the application database, media store, analytics counters, or infrastructure.

Continue with Create your first page for the full field-by-field walkthrough.

5. Confirm health

php artisan capell:doctor

If you switch from QUEUE_CONNECTION=sync to database or redis, keep a worker running:

php artisan queue:work

Before production, also configure and prove the separate database and media backup path. Page history is not disaster recovery.

First-run fixes

Symptom	Action	Read next
`php artisan` is not executable or writable paths fail	`chmod +x artisan && chmod -R u+rwX storage bootstrap/cache`	Permissions troubleshooting
A queued publish never finishes	Start `php artisan queue:work`	Published pages never generate
The public page remains stale	Use Admin Clear Cache, then inspect the response/cache path	Published pages still show old content
A package class is missing after Composer	`composer dump-autoload && php artisan optimize:clear`	Package discovery
Frontend CSS is missing	`php artisan capell:frontend-install`, then run the application’s normal npm build if the installer requests it	Themes and frontend assets
The installer stops at health review	Run the exact `Fix:` command shown, then rerun `php artisan capell:doctor`	Site Health