Blade Intelephense Bridge

Full PHP Intelephense intelligence inside .blade.php files — the same completions, diagnostics, and navigation you get in plain .php, now in your Blade templates.

Blade files are registered under the blade language, which Intelephense ignores (its language server only attaches to php). This extension bridges that gap: it mirrors the PHP regions of your Blade file into a hidden php document that Intelephense does index, then routes completion, hover, definition, and signature requests through it — so everything just works.

Screenshots

Import an unimported class — auto-inserts the use statement

Add a method call — snippet with tab stops for each argument

Tailwind class completions inside a PHP string

Tailwind class completions inside a JS string

Who is this for?

This extension is built for custom PHP frameworks that use the Blade template engine where Blade files contain plain PHP calling your own classes and helpers, and you want first-class PHP intelligence in them.

Not for stock Laravel. Laravel projects are better served by dedicated Laravel tooling (e.g. Laravel and community extensions like Laravel Blade Snippets), which understand Blade directives, facades, views, and routes natively. This bridge is intentionally framework-agnostic — it does not know about Laravel's @directives, facades, or container — it simply exposes raw PHP/class intelligence inside Blade markup.

Features

• Class & method completion — Str::, $model->, your project classes, vendor classes, PHP built-ins.
• Method-call snippets — accepting a method inserts its full call with editable argument placeholders: Str::find($find, $str, $caseSensitive), Tab through each.
• Unimported-class completion + auto-import — type a class name (e.g. Str) and pick from every matching class in your workspace, shown with its fully-qualified name. Accepting inserts the use Spectabile\Foundation\Str; statement automatically, matching your file's existing indentation.
• Hover documentation — full type info and PHPDoc on hover.
• Go to definition — jump straight to the class, method, or function source.
• Signature help — parameter hints as you type call arguments.
• PHP diagnostics — real Intelephense errors and warnings, relayed onto the exact lines of your Blade file.
• Import Class command — right-click a class name → Blade: Import Class. If several classes share the name, pick which one to import.
• Tailwind class completions in PHP & JS strings — on activation, the bridge automatically registers a classRegex pattern in your global VS Code settings so the Tailwind CSS IntelliSense extension offers class completions inside any string literal in .blade.php, .php, and .js files — not just inside HTML class="..." attributes. Works for $var = 'flex items-center', ternary branches, and JS property assignments alike. Requires Tailwind CSS IntelliSense to be installed; no per-project configuration needed.

All intelligence comes from your already-running Intelephense and Tailwind IntelliSense instances — no second language server, no duplicate index, no extra memory.

Requirements

• PHP Intelephense (bmewburn.vscode-intelephense-client) must be installed and active. This extension is a bridge to it, not a replacement.
• A Blade language grammar that registers .blade.php under the blade language id (for example Laravel Blade Snippets — only its grammar is needed; its Laravel snippets are independent of this bridge).

Settings

This extension has no settings of its own — it works out of the box once Intelephense, a Blade grammar, and Tailwind CSS IntelliSense are installed.

On first activation it writes one entry to your global tailwindCSS.experimental.classRegex setting so Tailwind completions fire inside string literals across all projects. The write is idempotent — it only runs if the pattern is not already present. You can inspect or remove it under tailwindCSS.experimental.classRegex in your user settings.json. Its behaviour does, however, follow a few of Intelephense's settings:

You do not need to add the OS temp folder to any include/exclude list — the bridge opens each mirror explicitly, so Intelephense picks it up regardless.

For Tailwind completions to appear automatically inside JS strings (without pressing Ctrl+Space), ensure "other" is enabled in your [javascript] quick suggestions:

"[javascript]": {
  "editor.quickSuggestions": {
    "strings": true,
    "other": "on"
  }
}

If .blade.php files open as plain php (or html) instead of blade, ensure your Blade grammar's file association is active:

"files.associations": {
  "*.blade.php": "blade"
}

How it works

For each open Blade file the extension maintains a hidden mirror — a .php file containing only the PHP regions of the template, with non-PHP areas blanked out so line and column positions stay identical.

Where mirrors are stored: mirrors are written to a single folder named spectabile-blade-bridge inside your operating system's temp directory (%TEMP% on Windows, /tmp or $TMPDIR on macOS/Linux) — never inside your project. The folder is created automatically on first use and removed when the extension deactivates. Nothing is ever written to your repository.

Because the mirror is a real php document that the extension opens, Intelephense receives it through its normal didOpen flow and resolves its symbols against your already-indexed workspace — so completions, hover, and go-to-definition see all your classes. Requests on the Blade file are proxied to the mirror at the same position, and the results — including diagnostics — are mapped back onto the Blade file verbatim.

The mirror is created on open, kept in sync on every edit, and removed on close. It never appears as a tab.

Commands

Notes

• Mirror files live in spectabile-blade-bridge/ inside the OS temp directory, outside your project — nothing touches version control, and there is no dependency on any project folder existing.
• Diagnostics honour your intelephense.diagnostics.run setting; the mirror is saved on change so errors surface even under "onSave".
• Cross-platform: the temp location resolves correctly on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
• Multi-root workspaces are supported — each Blade file gets its own mirror, keyed by its full path.

Developed in collaboration with Claude Code (Anthropic).