Arcane

Expert guidance for building and maintaining projects with the Arcane Microframework. Use when creating new projects, defining routes, managing context-aware helpers, automatic assets, or handling localization.

Arcane Microframework

Arcane is a tiny (12kb) single-file PHP microframework where location is logic. It uses filesystem-based routing and context-aware autoloading.

Core Functions

• env(key, default): Environment variables.
• path(locator, actual): Unified tool for generating URLs or absolute server paths.
• relay(name, mixed): Yield data (or HTML via callable) from page to layout.
• scribe(string|array, replace): Translation/localization.

Project Structure

/
├── index.php        (The framework)
├── .env             (Configuration)
├── helpers/         (Context-aware logic)
├── layouts/         (Wrappers)
├── locales/         (Translations)
├── pages/           (Filesystem routes)
├── scripts/         (Auto-injected JS)
├── styles/          (Auto-injected CSS)
└── images/          (Assets)

Workflows

1. Routing & Dynamic Segments

Files in pages/ map to URLs. For dynamic segments (e.g., /blog/my-post/), use define('ROUTES', [...]) in the closest physical file (e.g., pages/blog.php).

2. Layouts & Data

Use define('LAYOUT', 'name') in a page to wrap it in layouts/name.php. Use relay() to pass data like page titles.

3. Context-Aware Helpers

Helpers in helpers/ are automatically available as variables in pages. They cascade based on the directory structure, allowing section-specific overrides.

4. Automatic Assets

CSS/JS files in styles/ and scripts/ are auto-injected if they match the layout or page path. No manual <link> or <script> tags needed.

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For detailed API references and advanced patterns, refer to DOCUMENTATION.md.