Modernizing PHP API

It started with a tangled mess—a PHP CodeIgniter API weighed down by years of tightly coupled business logic. Productivity? Practically non-existent. Confidence in touching the code? Zero. For years, the client’s team had been stuck, paralyzed by the fear of breaking something with every keystroke.

That’s when I stepped in.

With one look at the chaos, I saw the pattern. The cracks in the architecture were obvious, and I knew exactly what needed to be done. Armed with a bold, firm idea, I single-handedly mapped out the path to modernity: migrating the entire API to a Bun Hono Cloudflare stack.

First, I tackled the API documentation—no more guesswork or outdated README files. Using hono zod-openapi, I created self-documenting APIs that were precise, elegant, and beautifully displayed on Scalar API documentation. Suddenly, the client had an API that didn’t just work—it explained itself.

Next came the ORM. The legacy database setup was inefficient and risky. With Drizzle ORM, I reimagined their data layer, introducing modern, typesafe queries that transformed database interactions. Introspection tools made the transition seamless, and I even generated seed data to give their team a head start.

The biggest challenge? Untangling years of tightly coupled business logic—like peeling apart a brick wall glued with duct tape. Piece by piece, I refactored it, breaking dependencies and introducing clean modular patterns.

The result? A sleek, high-performance API stack that not only solved their problems but empowered their team to dream bigger. Productivity soared, confidence returned, and for the first time in years, they were rolling out new features with ease.

What started as a legacy mess ended as a modern marvel—thanks to a single, bold vision and a lot of determination.