Frequently Asked Questions
What is LaravelUi5?
LaravelUi5 is a stack for building enterprise applications on Laravel. It has three layers: a standards-compliant OData v4 data layer, a metadata engine that derives routes and manifests from plain PHP objects, and the enterprise UX of OpenUI5 — the SAP Fiori design system — native to Laravel. You declare what your application is made of; the framework derives the addresses, the manifests and the services from that declaration.
Do I need SAP to use it?
No. OpenUI5 is the open-source edition of SAP's UI toolkit, licensed Apache 2.0, and it runs anywhere. LaravelUi5 needs no SAP backend, no BTP subscription and no SAP account. What you get from that lineage is the design system: layouts, interaction patterns, theming, accessibility and internationalisation that an enterprise UI already has to have.
Which packages do I need?
Start with laravelui5/core; it requires laravelui5/odata and brings it along. Core is enough when you are building apps and want the metadata engine, the routing and the OData surface. You need laravelui5/sdk when you need the things that require stored state: time-aware authorization, scoped settings, one partner model for customers and suppliers, and the enterprise shell.
Core or SDK — a 30-second self-check
Is it free?
laravelui5/odata is MIT and free. laravelui5/core is free to use in production under the Business Source License 1.1 — you need a free account for the download token, not a payment. laravelui5/sdk is commercial.
Core is free because it is how you find out whether this is the right stack for you: on a real application, in your own repository, with nothing hidden.
Why the Business Source License and not MIT?
The BSL permits exactly what a user needs and withholds exactly what a competitor would take. Production use for building applications and services is permitted. Repackaging Core as a competing framework, library, SDK or development toolkit is not. And each release converts to Apache 2.0 four years after it ships, so the grant is a delay rather than a reservation.
Can I use Core in production?
Yes. That is written into the licence as an Additional Use Grant, not left to interpretation.
Is OData really read-only? How do I write, then?
Yes, and it is deliberate. The data layer serves queries — filtering, sorting, paging, projection, expansion — and never accepts a write. Every write is a Ui5Action: an addressable, versioned artifact with its own handler, its own validation and its own authorization gate.
A read is a question the client may shape freely; a write is a named business operation with a contract. Giving them the same door would mean giving the client the pen.
Do I have to know UI5 already?
No, and most people arriving from Laravel do not. The scaffolders generate working artifacts, and the free video course builds a complete application from laravel new in under an hour. What helps more than prior UI5 knowledge is a willingness to let the framework derive things you are used to writing by hand.
Does it work with an existing Laravel application?
Yes. A LaravelUi5 module is an ordinary Composer package that you require into an existing application, and it brings its own routes, artifacts and front end with it. You do not restructure the application to adopt it; you add a module and register it in one config file.
Can my coding agent use it?
Yes, and that is a deliberate surface rather than an accident. laravelui5/chiron is a free, dev-only package that ships AI guidelines and Agent Skills for all three packages, read by Laravel Boost. Install it and your agent knows the artifact model, the read/write split and the authorization rules instead of guessing at them.
composer require laravelui5/chiron --dev