0003: Laravel 13 with Livewire for the panel

• Status: accepted
• Date: 2026-10-17

Context

Wake needs routing, validation, localisation, mail, a template engine and an ecosystem of maintained packages, including the official laravel/mcp.

Decision

Wake is a Laravel 13 application on PHP 8.4 or newer. The panel is built with Livewire 3, Alpine.js and Blade components. JavaScript is only used where it pays off: the editor (Tiptap) and interactive charts.

Consequences

• Contributors only need PHP to work on almost every part of Wake.
• Built assets are shipped, so a server never needs Node.
• We follow Laravel's release cycle.
• PHP 8.4 is the minimum, because Laravel 13's current dependencies (Symfony 8, Pest 5) require it. Common shared hosts offer 8.4.

Alternatives considered

• A framework-free core like Kirby. Lighter, but we would rebuild what Laravel already does well.
• An SPA panel (Vue or React). More JavaScript to build, ship and maintain, and a second language for contributors.