The Master Zend Framework site has posted a new tutorial covering an aspect of the Zend Expressive project that doesn't seem to get enough coverage: the tooling included with the skeleton application.

For the longest time, Zend Framework hasn't had the strongest command-line tooling and scaffolding support. In stark contrast, other frameworks — especially Laravel, and its excellent Artisan command — have had far stronger tooling support and as a result have been far easier to build projects with. However, that's all changed!

Since the release of Zend Expressive Skeleton 2.0.2, Zend Expressive's command-line tooling support has been rapidly developing. It's provided through a package called, aptly, Zend Expressive Tooling.

The post briefly describes what features the tooling brings and then gets right into the installation process (via Composer). The tutorial then walks you through the commands it provides to create middleware, modules and handle migration to latest versions of the framework. The module and middleware topics are then covered more in-depth, showing code and commands required.