frankenphp/docs/worker.md

# Using FrankenPHP Workers

Boot your application once and keep it in memory.
FrankenPHP will handle incoming requests in a few milliseconds.

## Starting Worker Scripts

### Docker

Set the value of the `FRANKENPHP_CONFIG` environment variable to `worker /path/to/your/worker/script.php`:

```console
docker run \
    -e FRANKENPHP_CONFIG="worker /app/path/to/your/worker/script.php" \
    -v $PWD:/app \
    -p 80:80 -p 443:443 -p 443:443/udp \
    dunglas/frankenphp
```

### Standalone Binary

Use the `--worker` option of the `php-server` command to serve the content of the current directory using a worker:

```console
frankenphp php-server --worker /path/to/your/worker/script.php
```

If your PHP app is [embedded in the binary](embed.md), you can add a custom `Caddyfile` in the root directory of the app.
It will be used automatically.

It's also possible to [restart the worker on file changes](config.md#watching-for-file-changes) with the `--watch` option.
The following command will trigger a restart if any file ending in `.php` in the `/path/to/your/app/` directory or subdirectories is modified:

```console
frankenphp php-server --worker /path/to/your/worker/script.php --watch="/path/to/your/app/**/*.php"
```

## Symfony Runtime

The worker mode of FrankenPHP is supported by the [Symfony Runtime Component](https://symfony.com/doc/current/components/runtime.html).
To start any Symfony application in a worker, install the FrankenPHP package of [PHP Runtime](https://github.com/php-runtime/runtime):

```console
composer require runtime/frankenphp-symfony
```

Start your app server by defining the `APP_RUNTIME` environment variable to use the FrankenPHP Symfony Runtime:

```console
docker run \
    -e FRANKENPHP_CONFIG="worker ./public/index.php" \
    -e APP_RUNTIME=Runtime\\FrankenPhpSymfony\\Runtime \
    -v $PWD:/app \
    -p 80:80 -p 443:443 -p 443:443/udp \
    dunglas/frankenphp
```

## Laravel Octane

See [the dedicated documentation](laravel.md#laravel-octane).

## Custom Apps

The following example shows how to create your own worker script without relying on a third-party library:

```php
<?php
// public/index.php

// Prevent worker script termination when a client connection is interrupted
ignore_user_abort(true);

// Boot your app
require __DIR__.'/vendor/autoload.php';

$myApp = new \App\Kernel();
$myApp->boot();

// Handler outside the loop for better performance (doing less work)
$handler = static function () use ($myApp) {
    try {
        // Called when a request is received,
        // superglobals, php://input and the like are reset
        echo $myApp->handle($_GET, $_POST, $_COOKIE, $_FILES, $_SERVER);
    } catch (\Throwable $exception) {
        // `set_exception_handler` is called only when the worker script ends,
        // which may not be what you expect, so catch and handle exceptions here
        (new \MyCustomExceptionHandler)->handleException($exception);
    }
};

$maxRequests = (int)($_SERVER['MAX_REQUESTS'] ?? 0);
for ($nbRequests = 0; !$maxRequests || $nbRequests < $maxRequests; ++$nbRequests) {
    $keepRunning = \frankenphp_handle_request($handler);

    // Do something after sending the HTTP response
    $myApp->terminate();

    // Call the garbage collector to reduce the chances of it being triggered in the middle of a page generation
    gc_collect_cycles();

    if (!$keepRunning) break;
}

// Cleanup
$myApp->shutdown();
```

Then, start your app and use the `FRANKENPHP_CONFIG` environment variable to configure your worker:

```console
docker run \
    -e FRANKENPHP_CONFIG="worker ./public/index.php" \
    -v $PWD:/app \
    -p 80:80 -p 443:443 -p 443:443/udp \
    dunglas/frankenphp
```

By default, 2 workers per CPU are started.
You can also configure the number of workers to start:

```console
docker run \
    -e FRANKENPHP_CONFIG="worker ./public/index.php 42" \
    -v $PWD:/app \
    -p 80:80 -p 443:443 -p 443:443/udp \
    dunglas/frankenphp
```

### Restart the Worker After a Certain Number of Requests

As PHP was not originally designed for long-running processes, there are still many libraries and legacy codes that leak memory.
A workaround to using this type of code in worker mode is to restart the worker script after processing a certain number of requests:

The previous worker snippet allows configuring a maximum number of request to handle by setting an environment variable named `MAX_REQUESTS`.

### Restart Workers Manually

While it's possible to restart workers [on file changes](config.md#watching-for-file-changes), it's also possible to restart all workers
gracefully via the [Caddy admin API](https://caddyserver.com/docs/api). If the admin is enabled in your
[Caddyfile](config.md#caddyfile-config), you can ping the restart endpoint with a simple POST request like this:

```console
curl -X POST http://localhost:2019/frankenphp/workers/restart
```

### Worker Failures

If a worker script crashes with a non-zero exit code, FrankenPHP will restart it with an exponential backoff strategy.
If the worker script stays up longer than the last backoff \* 2,
it will not penalize the worker script and restart it again.
However, if the worker script continues to fail with a non-zero exit code in a short period of time
(for example, having a typo in a script), FrankenPHP will crash with the error: `too many consecutive failures`.

The number of consecutive failures can be configured in your [Caddyfile](config.md#caddyfile-config) with the `max_consecutive_failures` option:

```caddyfile
frankenphp {
    worker {
        # ...
        max_consecutive_failures 10
    }
}
```

## Superglobals Behavior

[PHP superglobals](https://www.php.net/manual/en/language.variables.superglobals.php) (`$_SERVER`, `$_ENV`, `$_GET`...)
behave as follows:

- before the first call to `frankenphp_handle_request()`, superglobals contain values bound to the worker script itself
- during and after the call to `frankenphp_handle_request()`, superglobals contain values generated from the processed HTTP request, each call to `frankenphp_handle_request()` changes the superglobals values

To access the superglobals of the worker script inside the callback, you must copy them and import the copy in the scope of the callback:

```php
<?php
// Copy worker's $_SERVER superglobal before the first call to frankenphp_handle_request()
$workerServer = $_SERVER;

$handler = static function () use ($workerServer) {
    var_dump($_SERVER); // Request-bound $_SERVER
    var_dump($workerServer); // $_SERVER of the worker script
};

// ...
```