Pipe Dream

Pipe Dream turns your business logic into a flow you can read, and every run into a receipt you can read back: every step named, timed and recorded.

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"Why was my order put on hold?"

In most codebases, the honest answer is "let me get an engineer to dig through the logs."

With Pipe Dream, the answer is one database row:

Checkout · On hold: Two or more fraud signals (2.58 ms)

Validate the order — Is this a complete order for items we can actually ship?
  ✓ RequireShippingAddress        (0.06 ms)
  ✓ ConfirmItemsInStock           (1.75 ms)  3 items in stock
  ✓ ApplyDiscountCodes            (0.04 ms)  SPRING20 applied: -$24.00
  ✓ CalculateTax                  (0.02 ms)  Tax: $7.92

Fraud screen — Does this look like the real cardholder?
  ✗ MatchBillingToShippingCountry (0.02 ms)  Billing US, shipping NL
  ✗ CheckCardVelocity             (0.01 ms)  4 cards tried on this account in 10 minutes
  ✓ ScoreDeviceFingerprint        (0.01 ms)

Charge — Take the money, only for orders we will ship · skipped: Held for review: Two or more fraud signals
  ↷ AuthorizePayment              skipped
  ↷ CapturePayment                skipped

Fulfil — Reserve stock, tell the warehouse, email the receipt · skipped: Held for review: Two or more fraud signals
  ↷ ReserveInventory              skipped
  ↷ SendToWarehouse               skipped
  ↷ EmailReceipt                  skipped

Every rule that ran. What it decided. Why. How long it took. And proof of what didn't happen: the card was never charged and nothing shipped, so your support team can say so, with receipts.

You didn't write a single log line to get that. You wrote this:

<?php

use Keaton\PipeDream\PipeHub;
use Keaton\PipeDream\PipeManager;

$envelope = PipeManager::create([

    PipeHub::create()
        ->name('Validate the order')
        ->description('Is this a complete order for items we can actually ship?')
        ->addPipes([
            RequireShippingAddress::class,
            ConfirmItemsInStock::class,
            ApplyDiscountCodes::class,
            CalculateTax::class,
        ]),                           // a broken order ends the whole flow here

    PipeHub::create()
        ->name('Fraud screen')
        ->description('Does this look like the real cardholder?')
        ->addPipes([
            MatchBillingToShippingCountry::class,
            CheckCardVelocity::class,
            ScoreDeviceFingerprint::class,
        ])
        ->skipIf(fn ($order) => $order->customerIsTrusted(), 'Trusted customer')
        ->then(fn ($order) => $order->riskSignals() >= 2 ? $order->holdForReview('Two or more fraud signals') : null),

    PipeHub::create()
        ->name('Charge')
        ->description('Take the money, only for orders we will ship')
        ->addPipes([
            AuthorizePayment::class,
            CapturePayment::class,
        ])
        ->skipIf(fn ($order) => $order->isOnHold() ? "Held for review: {$order->holdReason}" : null)
        ->errorsAreFatal(),           // a failed charge ends the flow

    PipeHub::create()
        ->name('Fulfil')
        ->description('Reserve stock, tell the warehouse, email the receipt')
        ->addPipes([
            ReserveInventory::class,
            SendToWarehouse::class,
            EmailReceipt::class,
        ])
        ->skipIf(fn ($order) => $order->isOnHold() ? "Held for review: {$order->holdReason}" : null),

])
    ->name('Checkout')
    ->subject($order)
    ->then(fn ($order) => $order->markPlaced())
    ->sendIt();

Read it once and you understand the whole checkout process. So will the next engineer, your support lead, and you in six months.

Same shape, any business

Checkout is one flow. Here's a completely different one: a production ad-click intake, the kind that sits in front of a high-volume tracking system. Different business, same pipe, same receipt:

Ad click intake · completed with errors (1.40 ms)

Validate & start session
  ✓ RequireTrackingParameters      (0.02 ms)
  ✓ VerifyClickSignature           (0.01 ms)
  ✓ RecognizeCampaign              (0.01 ms)  Campaign quillstone-free-plan

Suppression · skipped: Newsletter campaign
  ↷ CheckAdvertiserSuppressionList skipped

Bot checks
  ✗ DetectHostingProviderIp        (0.14 ms)  203.0.113.23 belongs to Example Cloud
  ✗ ScoreClickVelocity             (0.02 ms)  4 clicks from this IP in a minute

Route
  ✓ ChooseDestination              (0.01 ms)  Held for review: two bot signals

That pattern has pushed hundreds of millions of clicks through production, with a full audit trail on every one. When something looked wrong, nobody stepped through code. They read the receipt.

Loan decisions, KYC onboarding, insurance claims, refunds, content moderation: if it's a series of decisions someone will later ask you to explain, it's a pipe.

How it works, in three words

• Rules: small classes that do one thing, like CheckCardVelocity or VerifyClickSignature. Each one passes, fails, skips, or stops the flow, and gives a reason.
• Hubs: named stages that group rules, with control flow declared right on the stage: skipIf(), then(), errorsAreFatal(), fatalsStopThisHubOnly().
• The receipt: every run is timed and logged automatically, then saved as one row you can query (PipeDreamLog::withProblems()) and rebuild into the timelines above, long after the request is gone.

Try it

composer require keaton-php/pipe-dream

PHP 8.1+, Laravel 9–13. The service provider is auto-discovered.

→ Build your first flow in five minutes · Docs · The story behind it

MIT licensed. Built by Kevin Eaton.