Tempest 3 on elephc

Tempest, compiled ahead of time.

Tempest 3.16.2 · 20 source + 0 vendor + 1 runtime patches · real Tempest HTTP pipeline · finite web AOT profile

An experimental port that compiles a pinned Tempest 3.x checkout into a finite native elephc web binary while keeping every rewrite required by the verified request graph in a reviewable patch corpus.

Official Website

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Important

This is a narrow AOT web profile, not complete Tempest compatibility and not a production-ready application.

Current status

• Upstream tempestphp/tempest-framework, branch 3.x, release v3.16.2 (commit a14f676369) is the pinned baseline. Tempest sources stay byte-identical to that import in a fresh checkout.
• Compiler compatibility rewrites live in an explicit, file-level patch corpus: 20 Tempest source patches, no Composer dependency patches, and 1 isolated runtime Composer patch. Every patch has one target, original and patched blob hashes, and a path mirroring its target. Application is idempotent; a divergent file stops the process.
• The minimum corpus was revalidated against Elephc main commit 605fb1d78c (crate version 0.27.0). It contains only files reached by the finite web entry point. Removed framework-wide patches are not a claim of complete Tempest compatibility.
• The profile targets PHP 8.5 and is compiled with --php-version 8.5 --web. The build refuses to run unless the complete patch series is applied.
• A real request runs through Tempest's HttpApplication, GenericRouter, MatchRouteMiddleware, GenericRouteMatcher, route model, controllers, and response classes. Runtime discovery, reflective dependency injection, and dynamic callable dispatch are replaced by finite AOT adapters.
• Verified routes: / (200 HTML), /health (200 JSON), /hello/:name (200 text), /elephc (302 to the Elephc website), and a real 404 fallback for unknown paths.

Reproduce the build

ELEPHC_REPO must point to an elephc checkout; the build runs Cargo from that checkout, so no global elephc executable is involved.

export ELEPHC_REPO=/path/to/elephc
COMPOSER_ROOT_VERSION=3.x-dev composer install
./scripts/apply-elephc-patches.sh
./scripts/build-elephc.sh
./elephc/runtime/server --listen 127.0.0.1:8080 --workers 1

Verify the supported behavior:

npm run test:elephc      # HTTP checks against the compiled binary
npm run audit:patches    # patch corpus integrity
npm run test:clean-room  # full install-patch-build-test cycle in a source-only export

./scripts/apply-elephc-patches.sh --check reports the applied root source state without modifying files (the vendor series is now empty). scripts/build-elephc.sh then installs the isolated runtime Composer graph, applies its one manifest patch, builds the compiler from a temporary archive of ELEPHC_REPO, installs the locked PCRE2 native package required by current Elephc, verifies the object-expression ::class regression probe, and compiles the web binary. The Elephc checkout itself remains unchanged.

After changing a source patch in an existing checkout, reinstall the mirrored Tempest package while the source patches are applied before rebuilding:

COMPOSER_ROOT_VERSION=3.x-dev composer reinstall tempest/framework \
  --working-dir elephc/runtime --no-interaction --prefer-dist

Current boundaries

The entry point is elephc/runtime/server.php. Its isolated Composer project mirrors the patched Tempest package instead of symlinking it and disables the framework's eager autoload.files list with a committed runtime patch. No synthetic Symfony, Whoops, or PHP internal-type declarations are part of the compiled graph.

The verified request path is:

elephc worker
  -> Tempest\Router\HttpApplication
  -> Tempest\Router\GenericRouter
  -> Tempest\Router\MatchRouteMiddleware
  -> Tempest\Router\Routing\Matching\GenericRouteMatcher
  -> AOT controller dispatcher
  -> controller with #[Get]
  -> Tempest\Http\Response
  -> AOT response sender

Bootstrap contains the finite route manifest. The #[Get] attributes remain on the controller methods, but Elephc does not discover them with runtime reflection. AotRequest, StaticContainer, AotRouteHandler, AotResponseSender, and AotKernel are the explicit finite AOT boundary.

The supported profile currently has GET routes, one required string parameter, status/header/body/JSON/redirect responses, HEAD body suppression, and a 404 fallback. Runtime discovery, general reflective DI, arbitrary middleware stacks, views, sessions, cookies, uploaded files, and parsed request input are not claimed as supported.

full-framework.php remains a diagnostic probe for the reflective FrameworkKernel::boot() path. That path stays open-ended for AOT because BootDiscovery scans runtime filesystem paths and instantiates classes reflectively, which elephc cannot enumerate from the request entry point. The verified profile therefore uses the static manifest instead of claiming full dynamic compatibility.

After patching, the working tree is an AOT build tree and should not be treated as a normal upstream Tempest checkout.

Documentation

• Porting log: baseline, patch policy, and full-framework probe