Reliability Analyzers

13 analyzers ensuring your application handles errors gracefully, maintains uptime, and prevents runtime failures.

Overview

Reliability analyzers focus on preventing runtime errors, ensuring proper configuration, validating dependencies, and maintaining application stability. These analyzers help catch issues before they cause production outages or user-facing errors.

Key Analyzers

Configuration & Environment

Cache Prefix Configuration

Ensures cache prefix is set to avoid collisions

Low

Cache Status

Validates cache connectivity and functionality

High

Composer Validation

Ensures composer.json is valid and follows best practices

Medium

Database Status

Ensures database connections are accessible and functioning

Critical

Environment Example Documentation

Ensures all environment variables used in .env are documented in .env.example for team collaboration

Low

Environment File Existence

Ensures .env file exists, is readable, not empty, and checks for broken symlinks

Critical

Environment Variables Complete

Ensures all required environment variables from .env.example are defined in .env

High

Maintenance Mode Status

Checks if the application is in maintenance mode

High

Infrastructure & Permissions

Custom Error Pages

Ensures custom error pages are configured to prevent framework fingerprinting

Low

Directory Write Permissions

Ensures critical Laravel directories (storage/, bootstrap/cache/) have proper write permissions

High

Queue & Database

Queue Timeout Configuration

Ensures queue timeout and retry_after values are properly configured

High

Up-to-Date Migrations

Ensures all database migrations are up to date and have been executed

High

Static Analysis

PHPStan Static Analysis

Comprehensive static analysis detecting 13 categories of code reliability issues including dead code, undefined variables, invalid method calls, and more

Critical

PHPStan Detection Categories

• Dead Code - Unreachable statements, unused variables, and code with no effect
• Deprecated Code - Usage of deprecated methods, classes, and functions
• Foreach Iterable - Invalid foreach usage with non-iterable values
• Invalid Function Calls - Calls to undefined or incorrectly parameterized functions
• Invalid Imports - Invalid use statements for non-existent classes
• Invalid Method Calls - Calls to undefined or incorrectly parameterized methods
• Invalid Method Overrides - Incompatible method signature overrides
• Invalid Offset Access - Invalid array offset access and type mismatches
• Invalid Property Access - Access to undefined or inaccessible properties
• Missing Model Relations - References to non-existent Eloquent relations
• Missing Return Statements - Methods with missing return statements
• Undefined Constants - References to undefined constants
• Undefined Variables - References to undefined variables

How They Work

Reliability analyzers use a combination of:

1. Static Analysis (PHPStan): Detects code-level issues like undefined variables, invalid method calls, and type mismatches
2. Configuration Validation: Checks Laravel configuration files, environment variables, and Composer dependencies
3. Runtime Checks: Validates that services (cache, database) are accessible and functioning
4. File System Analysis: Verifies file permissions, existence of required files, and directory structure

Severity Levels

Severity	Description	Examples
Critical	Issues that will cause immediate runtime failures	Undefined variables, invalid method calls, missing environment files
High	Issues that may cause failures under certain conditions	Missing migrations, invalid queue configuration, cache connectivity issues
Medium	Issues that reduce reliability or maintainability	Deprecated code usage, dead code, missing return statements
Low	Best practice violations that don't directly impact reliability	Custom error pages, cache prefix configuration

Running Reliability Analyzers

Run All Reliability Analyzers

php artisan shield:analyze --category=reliability

Run Specific Analyzer

php artisan shield:analyze --analyzer=database-status
php artisan shield:analyze --analyzer=up-to-date-migrations
php artisan shield:analyze --analyzer=cache-status

Run Multiple Analyzers

php artisan shield:analyze --analyzer=composer-validation,queue-timeout-configuration,maintenance-mode-status

Best Practices

Development

• Run reliability analyzers before committing code
• Fix Critical and High severity issues immediately
• Use static analysis (PHPStan) to catch issues early

CI/CD

• Run reliability analyzers on every pull request
• Fail builds on Critical severity issues
• Monitor reliability metrics over time

Production

• Schedule periodic reliability checks
• Monitor for configuration drift
• Validate environment variables on deployment

Related Categories

• Security Analyzers - Prevent security vulnerabilities
• Performance Analyzers - Optimize application performance
• Code Quality Analyzers - Maintain code quality standards
• Best Practices Analyzers - Follow Laravel conventions