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Phant Docs

Quickstart on Linux

This guide gets you from zero to a working local workflow with Phant on Linux.

What you will do

Section titled “What you will do”
  1. Download a Phant binary.
  2. Launch Phant and connect your first project.
  3. Confirm site routing, PHP version, and service state.
  4. Verify dump output capture in the app UI.

Before you start

Section titled “Before you start”
  • Linux desktop environment (X11 or Wayland).
  • A local PHP/Laravel project.
  • Sudo access if your distro needs package setup for PHP or services.

1. Download and run Phant

Section titled “1. Download and run Phant”

Get the latest release from the project releases page:

After download:

  1. Extract the archive.
  2. Make it executable.
  3. Run the binary.
Terminal window
chmod +x ./phant
./phant

2. Connect your first project

Section titled “2. Connect your first project”

In Phant:

  1. Open the Sites area.
  2. Add or detect your project path.
  3. Assign the local domain (for example, myapp.test).
  4. Set the PHP runtime version required by your app.

Expected result:

  • Your project appears in the site list.
  • Domain and PHP version are visible in one place.

3. Verify local services

Section titled “3. Verify local services”

Open the Services view and check current status for the tools you use, for example:

  • MariaDB or MySQL
  • Postgres
  • Redis or Valkey

Expected result:

  • You can immediately tell what is running and what is not.
  • No need to cross-check multiple terminal windows.

4. Verify dump capture

Section titled “4. Verify dump capture”

Open your Laravel app and trigger a debug call:

dump(['status' => 'ok', 'source' => 'quickstart']);

Then confirm the payload appears in Phant’s dumps panel.

Expected result:

  • Dump output is visible in Phant.
  • Browser/network debugging noise is reduced.

Troubleshooting

Section titled “Troubleshooting”

Domain does not resolve

Section titled “Domain does not resolve”
  1. Confirm the site entry exists in Phant.
  2. Re-apply linking/parking action in the Sites section.
  3. Restart browser and retry.

Service status looks wrong

Section titled “Service status looks wrong”
  1. Restart the service from your distro tools.
  2. Re-open the Services view.
  3. Ensure no other local manager is competing for the same port.

Dumps are not appearing

Section titled “Dumps are not appearing”
  1. Verify your project has dump hooks enabled as documented by Phant.
  2. Retry with a simple dump() call on a route hit.
  3. Check that the app is running under the expected PHP version.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”