Fast, reproducible PHP setup for GitHub Actions using prebuilt bundles.
Status: Alpha. Linux x86_64 only. PHP 8.1 – 8.5.
- uses: buildrush/setup-php@v0with:
php-version: '8.4'extensions: redisini-values: memory_limit=256Mbuildrush/setup-php ships prebuilt, content-addressed OCI bundles instead of compiling PHP at CI time. Bundles are built once, signed with Sigstore, and pushed to GHCR. At setup time the action pulls the right bundle and extracts it — no apt-get, no compilation, no flaky mirrors.
This means setup typically completes in single-digit seconds, and every run gets a byte-identical PHP environment.
| Input | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
php-version | PHP version to install | 8.4 |
phpts | Thread safety (nts or zts). Only nts bundles are published today; see compat section below. | nts |
extensions | Comma-separated extensions (supports :ext to exclude and none to reset). | — |
ini-values | Comma-separated ini settings (key=value). | — |
ini-file | Base ini template (production or development). Only production is currently applied; see compat section. | production |
coverage | Coverage driver (xdebug, pcov, none). | none |
tools | Comma-separated tools to install. | — |
update | Accepted for v2 parse compatibility; no-op under prebuilt bundles. See compat section. | false |
fail-fast | Promote soft fallbacks (e.g. ZTS not available) to hard errors. | false |
php-version-file | File containing PHP version. | — |
| Output | Description |
|---|---|
php-version | Resolved PHP version (e.g., 8.4.6) |
| OS | Arch | PHP | Thread Safety |
|---|---|---|---|
| Linux (Ubuntu 22.04 + 24.04) | x86_64, aarch64 | 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5 | NTS |
These ship inside the PHP core bundle — no extra download required:
bcmath, calendar, ctype, curl, dom, exif, filter, ftp, gd, hash, iconv, intl, json, mbstring, opcache, openssl, pdo, pdo_mysql, pdo_pgsql, pdo_sqlite, pgsql, readline, session, simplexml, soap, sockets, sodium, sqlite3, tokenizer, xml, xmlreader, xmlwriter, zip, zlib
| Extension | Version |
|---|---|
| redis | 6.2.0 |
buildrush/setup-php is designed as a drop-in replacement for shivammathur/setup-php@v2. Existing workflows can migrate by changing only the uses: line.
Every input declared by v2 is declared here: php-version, php-version-file, extensions, ini-file, ini-values, coverage, tools, plus the env-var-driven phpts, update, fail-fast. Inputs we cannot implement given our prebuilt-bundle architecture (e.g. update) are accepted for parse compatibility and emit a ::warning:: line when set to a non-default value, so your workflow keeps running.
Defaults match v2 where they are observable: date.timezone=UTC and memory_limit=-1 are applied unless you override them in ini-values. The per-PHP-version compiled-in extension baseline is audited against the ondrej/php PPA that v2 relies on; see docs/compat-matrix.md for the current delta.
Extension list syntax works the same way:
extensions: redis, :opcache # include redis, exclude opcacheextensions: none, redis, curl # reset, then only redis + curlDetails, deliberate deviations, and deferred behavioral quirks are catalogued in docs/compat-matrix.md.
Every pull request and push to main runs the
ci.yml pipeline, which builds each
OS × ARCH × PHP cell and executes the fixture matrix in
test/compat/fixtures.yaml via phpup test.
The fixtures use v2-shaped inputs (php-version, extensions,
ini-values, coverage), so any drift from v2 semantics surfaces as a
fixture failure. A side-by-side diff against shivammathur/setup-php@v2
can be reproduced on demand with phpup compat-diff; the pinned
v2 SHA and the accepted-deviation allowlist live in
docs/compat-matrix.md.
See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup and guidelines.
When a PR modifies catalog/** or builders/**, the build pipeline self-publishes: new bundles are pushed to GHCR and bundles.lock is committed directly to the PR branch under the github-actions[bot] identity. This lets the compat harness run against the bundles the PR actually needs. Practical implications (force-push etiquette, fork-PR handling, orphan GC) live in CONTRIBUTING.md. Full design: docs/superpowers/specs/2026-04-20-bundle-schema-and-rollout-design.md.
MIT — see LICENSE.