Complementary Admin in Dotkernel Headless Platform

The Dotkernel Headless Platform is built with an architecture designed to be easy to maintain and expand indefinitely. Its core components are Dotkernel API and Dotkernel Queue, but the Dotkernel application suite also offers a fully separate, complementary Admin application designed to pair seamlessly with Dotkernel API.

What is Dotkernel Admin?

Dotkernel Admin is a in separate repository and is a fully-functional, independent application. It’s built on top of the same Mezzio + Laminas foundation, very much like Dotkernel API.

As with all Dotkernel applications, Admin is installed via Git within your folder of choice:

git clone https://github.com/dotkernel/admin.git .

Next follow the step-by-step installation guide to configure the database credentials and run migrations and fixtures that create and populate the database. It takes only a few minutes and you’ll have a ready-to-use admin panel.

Make sure to change the default credentials when in production.

The Admin has a built-in UI with authentication, user management and web interface included.

Features & Architecture

Dotkernel Admin comes with several useful features out of the box:

• The Role-Based Access Control uses dot-rbac and dot-rbac-guard to manage permissions, routes and handler-level security.
• The Frontend tooling uses Twig and NodeJS/NPM for client-side assets, which include build and watch scripts to manage JavaScript/CSS bundling.

The file architecture features a modular design with several functional modules such as:

• The Admin module which manages administrator users.
• The App module which houses core functions like authentication and error reporting.
• The Setting module which stores and manages display or application settings for various report pages.

How They Work Together

• The REST API is designed to serve JSON endpoints for clients, services and mobile apps alike.
• The Admin UI is a web-based interface that communicates with the database via its own action handlers to manage data, users and settings.

One of the greatest benefits to using both Dotkernel API and Admin is the unified tech stack. Both use the versatile Mezzio microframework, Laminas components, Doctrine ORM for database storage and object mapping, PHP FIG’s PSR standards and share modules like authentication and dot-rbac.

Put together, these ensure consistency across backend and admin tooling, while also making it easier to switch between developing one or the other. In fact, the similar architecture normally means you can employ fewer developers to manage codebases.

Summary

Dotkernel Admin is a complementary admin panel that provides effective reporting out of the box and is a good starting point for your admin requirements. It’s not bundled by default, but is provided as a first-party, installable package designed to work seamlessly alongside your API.

Together, the two applications form a cohesive system. You normally start with the API backend and add the rich administrative interface to the mix to complete your admin platform.

Both API and Admin are built with the same underlying file architecture and implement the same PHP standards – PSR-7 (HTTP messages) and PSR-15 (middleware).

If you’re looking for a headless API with a ready-to-use admin UI that you can launch quickly, the Dotkernel solution is the way to go. Here are some of the benefits for both components:

• They are fully open-source and in active development.
• They are highly configurable to suit your exact requirements.
• They guarantee a future-proof system using the best practices recommended by the PHP community.

Additional Resources

• Dotkernel Admin full documentation
• Dotkernel Admin Installation
• Dotkernel Repositories
• PHP Framework Interop Group Standards

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