Chronos CMS

A developer-friendly headless CMS built by Further.

Requirements

• PHP 8.3 or newer
• Laravel 13
• A database supported by Laravel
• The PHP GD extension for image processing

Installation

Install from Packagist

composer require further/chronos

Register the service provider

Chronos does not currently use Laravel package auto-discovery. Add its service provider to bootstrap/providers.php:

<?php

use App\Providers\AppServiceProvider;
use Chronos\ChronosServiceProvider;

return [
    AppServiceProvider::class,
    ChronosServiceProvider::class,
];

Composer installs and discovers Chronos' third-party dependencies. Do not add legacy Intervention Image or Laravel Collective providers and aliases to the application.

Configure Sanctum

Chronos uses Laravel Sanctum for API access tokens. Install Laravel's API scaffolding:

php artisan install:api

If Artisan offers to run migrations, you may defer them until the migration step below.

Prepare the User model

Chronos expects App\Models\User to use Sanctum, notifications, and the ChronosUser trait. A Laravel 13 User model can be configured as follows:

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use Chronos\Traits\ChronosUser;
use Database\Factories\UserFactory;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Attributes\Fillable;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Attributes\Hidden;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\HasFactory;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\User as Authenticatable;
use Illuminate\Notifications\Notifiable;
use Laravel\Sanctum\HasApiTokens;

#[Fillable([
    'email',
    'password',
    'firstname',
    'lastname',
    'picture',
    'role_id',
])]
#[Hidden([
    'password',
    'remember_token',
])]
class User extends Authenticatable
{
    /** @use HasFactory<UserFactory> */
    use HasApiTokens;
    use HasFactory;
    use Notifiable;
    use ChronosUser;

    protected $appends = [
        'endpoints',
        'name',
    ];

    protected function casts(): array
    {
        return [
            'email_verified_at' => 'datetime',
            'password' => 'hashed',
        ];
    }
}

Chronos' migration removes the default users.name column and adds firstname, lastname, picture, and role_id. Remove name from the model's fillable attributes before running the migrations. Update any application factories, seeders, tests, or registration code that still writes to users.name.

Configure the Environment

Set the application's public URL and the absolute path to its public directory:

APP_URL=http://127.0.0.1:8000
UPLOAD_URL=/absolute/path/to/application/public

Chronos stores uploaded media below UPLOAD_URL and exposes it below APP_URL.

Publish Resources

Publish the package configuration:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Chronos\ChronosServiceProvider" --tag=config

Publish the browser assets:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Chronos\ChronosServiceProvider" --tag=public --force

The assets are published to public/chronos.

Views may optionally be published for customization:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Chronos\ChronosServiceProvider" --tag=views

After publishing, review config/chronos.php, especially upload_paths.

Run Migrations and Seeders

Chronos automatically loads its package migrations. Ensure the application already has Laravel's default users table, then run:

php artisan migrate
php artisan db:seed --class="Chronos\Database\Seeders\DatabaseSeeder"

For a disposable test application, starting with a clean database is safer:

php artisan migrate:fresh
php artisan db:seed --class="Chronos\Database\Seeders\DatabaseSeeder"

Clear Caches

After installation or after changing the local package:

composer dump-autoload
php artisan optimize:clear

Open the Admin Interface

Start the Laravel development server:

php artisan serve

Then open:

http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/login

Task Scheduling

Chronos registers a scheduled task that publishes content when its scheduled time is reached.

During local development, run:

php artisan schedule:work

In production, run Laravel's scheduler every minute:

https://gofurther.digital

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