Great Food PHP Client

A minimal, framework‑free PHP client library for interacting with the fictional Great Food Ltd REST API. This project demonstrates:

• API authentication using a client‑credentials token
• Fetching menus and products
• Parsing API responses
• Updating a product
• Running locally via Docker

AI Disclosure

I used AI (M365 Copilot) only to help draft this README and to quickly scaffold the initial project structure (folders, boilerplate files). All application logic, adaptations to real API responses, Docker/Swarm setup, tests, and examples were written and validated by me.

Features

• Pure PHP 8.1+
• Token-based authentication
• Menu and product retrieval
• Simple architecture
• Example scripts for test scenarios
• Docker dev environment

Project Structure

src/
  Api/
  Auth/
  Exceptions/
  Http/
examples/
  scenario1.php
  scenario2.php
tests/
  fixtures/
Dockerfile
docker-compose.dev.yml
stack.yml
README.md

Requirements

• PHP 8.1+
• Composer
• Docker + Docker Compose
• Docker Swarm (optional)

Running the Project Locally

Option 1 — Docker Compose (Development)

Rename env.example to .env and fill with your values For real api provide BASE_API_URL otherwise keep it blank to use mocked

docker compose up -d --build
docker stack deploy -c ./stack.yml greatfood
docker exec -it greatfood-php composer install

Run examples:

docker exec -it greatfood-php php examples/scenario1.php
docker exec -it greatfood-php php examples/scenario2.php

Run tests:

docker exec -it greatfood-php ./vendor/bin/phpunit

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How This Could Be Improved With More Time

If I had more time, I would:

1. Response handling & validation

   • Centralize and strengthen error handling for all endpoints
   • Validate response shapes (e.g., JSON Schema) to detect API changes early

2. DTOs for entities

   • Introduce typed DTOs (e.g., Menu, Product) for safer, self‑documenting data flow

3. Logging

   • Add structured logging (PSR‑3) for observability

4. Distribute as a Composer package

   • Extract the client into a reusable Composer package

5. Support alternative HTTP transports

   • Instead of relying solely on cURL, the HTTP layer could be abstracted further to allow plugging in different transports (e.g., Guzzle, Symfony HttpClient).

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