Installation

Diplodocus is a single folder of PHP and CSS files. There is no installer — you just put the folder somewhere a PHP interpreter can reach.

Requirements

  • PHP 8.0 or later
  • A web server (Apache, Nginx, Caddy, or the built-in php -S)
  • Mod rewrite or equivalent (optional — for clean URLs)

That's it. No database, no Composer, no Node.

Three ways to install

git clone https://github.com/joehunter/diplodocus.git
cd diplodocus
php -S localhost:8000

Open http://localhost:8000 — you should see this page.

2. Download the zip

  1. Download the latest zip from the releases page
  2. Extract into your web root (e.g. htspaces/diplodocus/)
  3. Visit http://localhost/diplodocus/

3. Docker one-liner

docker run -p 8000:80 -v "$PWD:/var/www/html" php:8.2-apache

Apache configuration

Diplodocus ships with an .htaccess file that handles routing. It should work out of the box. If clean URLs aren't working, make sure mod_rewrite is enabled and AllowOverride All is set for the directory.

<Directory /var/www/html/diplodocus>
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
</Directory>

Nginx configuration

Nginx doesn't read .htaccess. Use this in your server block:

server {
    listen 80;
    root /var/www/html/diplodocus;
    index index.php;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php8.2-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        include fastcgi_params;
    }

    # Block internal folders
    location ~ ^/(src|lib|templates|\.spaces|\.backup|\.git)/ {
        deny all;
    }
}

First-time checklist

  • PHP version is 8.0 or higher (php -v)
  • Web server is serving the Diplodocus folder
  • You can reach index.php in a browser
  • Optionally: copy config.example.php → config.php to customise
  • Optionally: drop your own folder of .md files next to getting-started/

Next