Build an AI Code Review Bot with Laravel — Real-World Use Case
Let me tell you how this idea actually started. A few months back, our team was doing PR reviews and I kept writing the same comment over and over, something like "this will cause an N+1 issue, please use eager loading." Different developer, different PR, same problem. Third time in two weeks I typed that comment, I thought there has to be a smarter way to handle this first pass.
That is what this is. Not some fancy AI product. Just a practical Laravel tool that takes a PHP code snippet, sends it to OpenAI, and gives back structured feedback before a human reviewer even opens the PR. The idea is simple: catch the obvious stuff automatically so your senior devs can spend their review time on things that actually need a human brain.
I will walk through the full build. By the end you will have a working Laravel app that accepts code, returns severity-tagged issues, security flags, suggestions, and a quality score. We will also hook it up to a queue so the UI does not freeze waiting on the API.
What you need before starting: Laravel 10 or 11, PHP 8.1+, Composer, and an OpenAI API key. That is it.
Why not PHPStan or CodeSniffer?
Because they are rule-based. They catch what they have been told to catch, nothing more.
PHPStan at max level is genuinely good. I use it. But here is the thing, some of the worst bugs in production do not violate a single linting rule. An N+1 query loop is syntactically perfect. A function that silently returns null on failure will not trigger any warning. A missing authorization check on a route will not show up in static analysis at all.
An LLM understands context. It can look at code and say "this will fall apart under load" or "this validation will silently pass null." That is a different category of feedback altogether. Use both, they are not competing with each other.
| What Gets Checked | PHPStan / PHPCS | AI Reviewer |
|---|---|---|
| Syntax and type errors | Strong | Yes |
| Coding standards | Strong | Yes |
| N+1 / query logic problems | No | Yes |
| Security patterns | Partial | Yes |
| Architecture suggestions | No | Yes |
| Explains why something is wrong | No | Yes |
How everything fits together
Before touching any code, here is the flow:
Developer submits PHP code via a form
↓
Laravel controller validates it
↓
CodeReviewService builds a structured prompt
↓
OpenAI GPT-4o analyses the code
↓
JSON response gets parsed
↓
Feedback renders back to the developer
No complex abstractions, no unnecessary packages beyond the OpenAI client. The structure is clean enough that adding features later, storing review history, GitHub webhook triggers, Slack notifications, is straightforward.
Step 1: Install Laravel and the OpenAI Package
composer create-project laravel/laravel ai-code-reviewer
cd ai-code-reviewer
composer require openai-php/laravel
Publish the config file:
php artisan vendor:publish --provider="OpenAI\Laravel\ServiceProvider"
Then open your .env and add your key:
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-your-key-here
OPENAI_ORGANIZATION=
One thing I will say plainly. I have seen API keys committed to git repos more times than I would like. Double check that .env is in your .gitignore before anything else.
Step 2: Create a Service - CodeReviewService
Third-party API calls belong in a service class. Not in a controller, not in a model. This keeps things testable and means when you want to swap GPT-4o for a different model down the line, you change exactly one file.
Create app/Services/CodeReviewService.php manually:
<?php
namespace App\Services;
use OpenAI\Laravel\Facades\OpenAI;
class CodeReviewService
{
public function review(string $code): array
{
$response = OpenAI::chat()->create([
'model' => 'gpt-4o',
'temperature' => 0.3,
'messages' => [
[
'role' => 'system',
'content' => 'You are a senior PHP developer and Laravel architect.
Review PHP code and return feedback as valid JSON only.
No markdown. No explanation outside the JSON object.',
],
[
'role' => 'user',
'content' => $this->buildPrompt($code),
],
],
]);
return $this->parse($response->choices[0]->message->content);
}
private function buildPrompt(string $code): string
{
return <<<PROMPT
Review the PHP/Laravel code below. Return a JSON object with these keys:
- "summary": 1-2 sentence overall assessment.
- "score": integer 1 to 10 for code quality.
- "issues": array of objects with:
- "severity": "critical", "warning", or "info"
- "line_hint": function name or rough location
- "message": clear explanation of the problem
- "suggestions": array of improvement suggestions as strings.
- "security_flags": array of security concerns, or empty array.
Code:
\`\`\`php
{$code}
\`\`\`
PROMPT;
}
private function parse(string $raw): array
{
$clean = preg_replace('/^```json\s*/i', '', trim($raw));
$clean = preg_replace('/```$/', '', trim($clean));
$data = json_decode(trim($clean), true);
if (json_last_error() !== JSON_ERROR_NONE) {
return [
'summary' => 'Response could not be parsed. Try submitting again.',
'score' => null,
'issues' => [],
'suggestions' => [],
'security_flags' => [],
];
}
return $data;
}
}
The temperature: 0.3 is intentional. Lower temperature means less randomness, the model stays focused and gives consistent output. For creative writing you would push that higher. For structured technical analysis, you want predictable not creative.
Also notice the parse method strips markdown fences. GPT-4o usually returns clean JSON when you ask for it, but it occasionally wraps the output in backtick fences anyway. This handles that without breaking anything.
Step 3: Controller and Routes
php artisan make:controller CodeReviewController
<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Services\CodeReviewService;
class CodeReviewController extends Controller
{
public function __construct(
private CodeReviewService $reviewService
) {}
public function index()
{
return view('code-review.index');
}
public function review(Request $request)
{
$request->validate([
'code' => 'required|string|min:10|max:5000',
]);
$feedback = $this->reviewService->review($request->input('code'));
return view('code-review.result', compact('feedback'));
}
}
Add the routes in routes/web.php:
use App\Http\Controllers\CodeReviewController;
Route::get('/code-review', [CodeReviewController::class, 'index'])
->name('code-review.index');
Route::post('/code-review', [CodeReviewController::class, 'review'])
->name('code-review.review');
Step 4: Blade Views
Keeping these minimal. The styling comes from your existing setup, no need to add anything extra here.
resources/views/code-review/index.blade.php
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>AI Code Reviewer</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>AI Code Reviewer</h1>
<p>Paste PHP or Laravel code below and get structured feedback instantly.</p>
<form method="POST" action="{{ route('code-review.review') }}">
@csrf
<textarea name="code" rows="15" cols="80"
placeholder="Paste your PHP code here...">{{ old('code') }}</textarea>
@error('code')
<p>{{ $message }}</p>
@enderror
<br>
<button type="submit">Review Code</button>
</form>
</body>
</html>
resources/views/code-review/result.blade.php
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Review Result</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Code Review Result</h1>
<p>{{ $feedback['summary'] ?? '' }}</p>
@isset($feedback['score'])
<p><strong>Quality Score: {{ $feedback['score'] }} / 10</strong></p>
@endisset
@if(!empty($feedback['issues']))
<h2>Issues Found</h2>
@foreach($feedback['issues'] as $issue)
<div>
<strong>[{{ strtoupper($issue['severity']) }}]</strong>
@if(!empty($issue['line_hint']))
, {{ $issue['line_hint'] }}
@endif
<p>{{ $issue['message'] }}</p>
</div>
<hr>
@endforeach
@else
<p>No major issues found.</p>
@endif
@if(!empty($feedback['security_flags']))
<h2>Security Flags</h2>
<ul>
@foreach($feedback['security_flags'] as $flag)
<li>{{ $flag }}</li>
@endforeach
</ul>
@endif
@if(!empty($feedback['suggestions']))
<h2>Suggestions</h2>
<ul>
@foreach($feedback['suggestions'] as $s)
<li>{{ $s }}</li>
@endforeach
</ul>
@endif
<p><a href="{{ route('code-review.index') }}">Review another snippet</a></p>
</body>
</html>
Step 5: Queue the API Call, Do not block the UI
GPT-4o usually responds in 2 to 4 seconds for short snippets, sometimes longer. That is not great for a synchronous web request, and on some server configs it will hit a timeout before the response comes back. For any production setup, queue it.
php artisan make:job ProcessCodeReview
<?php
namespace App\Jobs;
use App\Services\CodeReviewService;
use Illuminate\Bus\Queueable;
use Illuminate\Contracts\Queue\ShouldQueue;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Bus\Dispatchable;
use Illuminate\Queue\InteractsWithQueue;
use Illuminate\Queue\SerializesModels;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Cache;
class ProcessCodeReview implements ShouldQueue
{
use Dispatchable, InteractsWithQueue, Queueable, SerializesModels;
public int $timeout = 60;
public int $tries = 2;
public function __construct(
private string $code,
private string $cacheKey
) {}
public function handle(CodeReviewService $service): void
{
$result = $service->review($this->code);
Cache::put($this->cacheKey, $result, now()->addMinutes(10));
}
}
Update the controller to dispatch the job and add a polling method:
public function review(Request $request)
{
$request->validate(['code' => 'required|string|min:10|max:5000']);
$key = 'review_' . md5($request->input('code') . uniqid());
ProcessCodeReview::dispatch($request->input('code'), $key);
return view('code-review.waiting', ['cacheKey' => $key]);
}
public function poll(string $key)
{
$feedback = Cache::get($key);
if (!$feedback) {
return response()->json(['status' => 'pending']);
}
return response()->json(['status' => 'done', 'feedback' => $feedback]);
}
For local development, set QUEUE_CONNECTION=sync in your .env and jobs will run immediately without needing a worker. In production use redis or database.
What the bot actually catching: A Real Example
Here is a piece of code I have seen in various forms across different projects. It works. On a test database with ten orders nobody notices anything wrong with it.
<?php
public function getUserOrders($userId)
{
$orders = DB::table('orders')->where('user_id', $userId)->get();
foreach ($orders as $order) {
$items = DB::table('order_items')->where('order_id', $order->id)->get();
echo $order->id . ': ' . count($items) . ' items<br>';
}
}
Put this in front of a customer with 400 orders and watch what happens to your database.
Paste that into the reviewer and here is what comes back:
{
"summary": "Code is functional but has a critical N+1 query problem and bypasses Eloquent entirely. Direct output with echo also breaks MVC separation and makes this code untestable.",
"score": 3,
"issues": [
{
"severity": "critical",
"line_hint": "foreach loop, DB::table order_items",
"message": "N+1 query problem. One database query fires per order inside the loop. With 400 orders that becomes 401 queries. Use Eloquent with eager loading: Order::with('items')->where('user_id', $userId)->get()"
},
{
"severity": "warning",
"line_hint": "DB::table()",
"message": "Raw query builder bypasses Eloquent model logic, accessors, and relationships. Switching to Eloquent models makes the code significantly easier to maintain and test."
},
{
"severity": "info",
"line_hint": "echo statement",
"message": "Direct output inside a controller or service method violates MVC. Return structured data and handle rendering in the view layer."
}
],
"suggestions": [
"Define a hasMany relationship on Order pointing to OrderItem.",
"Replace DB::table calls with Order::with('items')->where('user_id', $userId)->get()",
"Return a collection and let Blade handle the output, do not echo from service methods."
],
"security_flags": [
"$userId passes into a query with no type check or validation. Confirm this is an authenticated, validated integer before it reaches any DB call."
]
}
Score of 3, one critical issue, one warning, one info note, and a security flag. All accurate, all actionable. That took under four seconds and it is exactly the kind of feedback that usually takes a few minutes of a senior developer's time to write out properly.
Where this fits in an actual Workflow
I want to be direct about this because I have seen people set up tools like this and then either over-rely on them or drop them after two weeks. The right use here is as a first-pass gate, not a replacement for peer review.
The workflow that actually makes sense: developer opens a PR, the bot triggers via a GitHub webhook, posts its feedback as a comment on the PR, and the human reviewer knows the basics have already been handled. They skip straight to the parts that need real judgment, design decisions, edge cases, whether the approach fits the broader architecture.
That is where this earns its place. Not by replacing review. By removing the repetitive first ten minutes of it.
Few things to know before building this:
The prompt structure matters more than anything else in this whole build. Early versions I tried came back as freeform text, which is hard to work with in a UI. Asking the model to return only JSON with field names you define upfront makes parsing reliable every time. Do not skip that part.
GPT-4o is noticeably better than GPT-3.5 for this kind of task, not just in accuracy but in how it explains problems. "Use eager loading" is less useful than "this fires one query per iteration, here is the exact fix." The difference in API cost is worth it if you are using this on a real codebase.
One more thing. Do not feed entire files in at once, at least not to start. Keep the input focused: a single method, one class, a specific feature. Smaller focused reviews produce better feedback. You can extend the input limit later once you are happy with the output quality.
From here the natural extensions to build are a GitHub webhook integration to trigger reviews on every PR automatically, a review history table to track quality trends over time, custom system prompts per project so the bot reviews against your team's conventions specifically, and Slack notifications when a review completes. None of that is complicated to add on top of what we have built here.
If you found this useful, drop a comment in the comment section.
Building a RAG System in Laravel from Scratch
Most RAG tutorials start with "first, sign up for Pinecone." I'm going to skip that entirely. For the majority of Laravel applications, a dedicated vector database is overkill. You already have MySQL. You already have Laravel's queue system. That's enough to build a fully functional retrieval augmented generation pipeline that works well into the tens of thousands of documents.
RAG solves a specific problem. LLMs are trained on general data up to a cutoff date. They know nothing about your application's content, your internal docs, your product knowledge base, or anything else specific to your domain. RAG fixes this by retrieving relevant content from your own data and injecting it into the prompt as context before asking the model to answer. The model stops guessing and starts answering based on what you actually have.
Here is how to build it properly in Laravel.
What We Are Building
A pipeline that does four things:
- Accepts documents (articles, pages, PDFs, anything text-based) and stores them with their embeddings
- When a user asks a question, converts that question into an embedding
- Finds the most semantically similar documents using cosine similarity against your stored embeddings
- Feeds those documents as context to GPT and returns a grounded answer
No external services beyond OpenAI. No Docker containers for a vector DB. Just Laravel, MySQL, and two API calls per query.
Requirements
- Laravel 10 or 11
- PHP 8.1+
- MySQL 8.0+
- OpenAI API key
- Guzzle (ships with Laravel)
Step 1: The Documents Table
php artisan make:migration create_documents_table
public function up(): void
{
Schema::create('documents', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->id();
$table->string('title');
$table->longText('content');
$table->longText('embedding')->nullable(); // JSON float array
$table->string('source')->nullable(); // URL, filename, etc.
$table->timestamps();
});
}
php artisan migrate
The embedding column stores a JSON-encoded array of 1536 floats (for text-embedding-3-small). Yes, it's a text column, not a native vector type. MySQL 9 adds vector support but for now JSON in a longText column works fine for most use cases.
Step 2: The Document Model
php artisan make:model Document
namespace App\Models;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
class Document extends Model
{
protected $fillable = ['title', 'content', 'embedding', 'source'];
protected $casts = [
'embedding' => 'array',
];
}
The embedding cast handles the JSON encoding and decoding automatically. When you set $document->embedding = $vectorArray, Laravel serializes it. When you read it back, you get a PHP array of floats.
Step 3: The Embedding Service
Keep all OpenAI communication in one place. This makes it easy to swap providers later.
php artisan make:service EmbeddingService
namespace App\Services;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Http;
class EmbeddingService
{
private string $apiKey;
private string $model = 'text-embedding-3-small';
public function __construct()
{
$this->apiKey = config('services.openai.key');
}
public function embed(string $text): array
{
// Trim to ~8000 tokens to stay within model limits
$text = mb_substr(strip_tags($text), 0, 32000);
$response = Http::withToken($this->apiKey)
->post('https://api.openai.com/v1/embeddings', [
'model' => $this->model,
'input' => $text,
]);
if ($response->failed()) {
throw new \RuntimeException('OpenAI embedding request failed: ' . $response->body());
}
return $response->json('data.0.embedding');
}
public function cosineSimilarity(array $a, array $b): float
{
$dot = 0.0;
$magA = 0.0;
$magB = 0.0;
foreach ($a as $i => $val) {
$dot += $val * $b[$i];
$magA += $val ** 2;
$magB += $b[$i] ** 2;
}
$denominator = sqrt($magA) * sqrt($magB);
return $denominator > 0 ? $dot / $denominator : 0.0;
}
}
Register it in config/services.php
'openai' => [
'key' => env('OPENAI_API_KEY'),
],
Step 4: Indexing Documents
A command to process documents and store their embeddings. You run this once on existing content, then hook it into your document creation flow going forward.
php artisan make:command IndexDocuments
namespace App\Console\Commands;
use App\Models\Document;
use App\Services\EmbeddingService;
use Illuminate\Console\Command;
class IndexDocuments extends Command
{
protected $signature = 'rag:index {--fresh : Re-index all documents}';
protected $description = 'Generate and store embeddings for all documents';
public function handle(EmbeddingService $embedder): int
{
$query = Document::query();
if (!$this->option('fresh')) {
$query->whereNull('embedding');
}
$documents = $query->get();
$bar = $this->output->createProgressBar($documents->count());
foreach ($documents as $doc) {
try {
$doc->embedding = $embedder->embed($doc->title . "\n\n" . $doc->content);
$doc->save();
$bar->advance();
} catch (\Exception $e) {
$this->error("Failed on document {$doc->id}: " . $e->getMessage());
}
// Respect OpenAI rate limits
usleep(200000); // 200ms between requests
}
$bar->finish();
$this->newLine();
$this->info('Indexing complete.');
return self::SUCCESS;
}
}
Run it:
php artisan rag:index
Notice I'm concatenating title and content before embedding. The title carries a lot of semantic weight and including it improves retrieval accuracy noticeably.
Step 5: The Retrieval Logic
This is the core of RAG. Given a query, find the most relevant documents.
namespace App\Services;
use App\Models\Document;
class RetrievalService
{
public function __construct(private EmbeddingService $embedder) {}
public function retrieve(string $query, int $topK = 5, float $threshold = 0.75): array
{
$queryVector = $this->embedder->embed($query);
$documents = Document::whereNotNull('embedding')->get();
$scored = $documents->map(function (Document $doc) use ($queryVector) {
return [
'document' => $doc,
'score' => $this->embedder->cosineSimilarity($queryVector, $doc->embedding),
];
})
->filter(fn($item) => $item['score'] >= $threshold)
->sortByDesc('score')
->take($topK)
->values();
return $scored->toArray();
}
}
The $threshold of 0.75 filters out loosely related documents. You may need to tune this for your content, lower it if you're getting no results, raise it if you're getting irrelevant ones. Anywhere between 0.70 and 0.85 is usually sensible.
Step 6: The RAG Query Service
This ties retrieval and generation together.
namespace App\Services;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Http;
class RagService
{
public function __construct(
private RetrievalService $retriever,
private string $apiKey
) {
$this->apiKey = config('services.openai.key');
}
public function ask(string $question): array
{
// Step 1: Retrieve relevant documents
$results = $this->retriever->retrieve($question, topK: 4);
if (empty($results)) {
return [
'answer' => 'I could not find relevant information to answer this question.',
'sources' => [],
];
}
// Step 2: Build context from retrieved docs
$context = collect($results)
->map(fn($r) => "### {$r['document']->title}\n{$r['document']->content}")
->join("\n\n---\n\n");
// Step 3: Send to GPT with context
$response = Http::withToken($this->apiKey)
->post('https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions', [
'model' => 'gpt-4o-mini',
'temperature' => 0.2,
'messages' => [
[
'role' => 'system',
'content' => "You are a helpful assistant. Answer questions using only the context provided below. If the answer is not in the context, say so clearly. Do not make up information.\n\nContext:\n{$context}"
],
[
'role' => 'user',
'content' => $question,
]
],
]);
return [
'answer' => $response->json('choices.0.message.content'),
'sources' => collect($results)->map(fn($r) => [
'title' => $r['document']->title,
'source' => $r['document']->source,
'score' => round($r['score'], 3),
])->toArray(),
];
}
}
Two things worth noting here. Temperature is set to 0.2, not the default 0.7. You want deterministic, factual answers when doing RAG, not creative ones. And the system prompt explicitly tells the model to stay within the provided context and admit when it doesn't know. Without that instruction, GPT will hallucinate rather than say "I don't have that information."
Step 7: The Controller
php artisan make:controller RagController
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use App\Services\RagService;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
class RagController extends Controller
{
public function __construct(private RagService $rag) {}
public function ask(Request $request)
{
$request->validate(['question' => 'required|string|max:500']);
$result = $this->rag->ask($request->input('question'));
return response()->json($result);
}
}
Register the route in routes/api.php
Route::post('/ask', [RagController::class, 'ask']);
Step 8: Test It
Seed a couple of documents first:
Document::create([
'title' => 'Laravel Queue Configuration',
'content' => 'Laravel queues allow you to defer time-consuming tasks...',
'source' => 'https://laravel.com/docs/queues',
]);
Run the indexer:
php artisan rag:index
Then hit the endpoint:
curl -X POST http://your-app.test/api/ask \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"question": "How do I configure Laravel queues?"}'
Response:
{
"answer": "Laravel queues are configured via the config/queue.php file...",
"sources": [
{
"title": "Laravel Queue Configuration",
"source": "https://laravel.com/docs/queues",
"score": 0.891
}
]
}
Where This Falls Down at Scale
This setup works well up to roughly 50,000 documents. Beyond that, loading all embeddings into memory for comparison becomes a problem. At that point your options are:
- Add a MySQL generated column + raw SQL dot product approximation to filter candidates before full cosine comparison
- Move to pgvector if you can switch to PostgreSQL, which handles this natively and efficiently
- Then and only then consider Pinecone or Weaviate
Most Laravel projects never reach that threshold. Start simple, measure, then scale the storage layer when you actually need to.
What to Build on Top of This
Once the core pipeline is working, the useful next steps are: caching query embeddings so repeated questions don't hit the API twice, chunking long documents into 500-token segments before embedding so retrieval is more granular, adding a feedback mechanism so users can flag bad answers and you can track retrieval quality over time, and per-user conversation history so the model has context across multiple turns.
That is a production-ready RAG foundation in Laravel with no external vector database. The whole thing is maybe 200 lines of actual PHP spread across four service classes and one command.
AI SEO Content Quality Analyzer for WordPress Using PHP and OpenAI
I've used Yoast and Rank Math for years. Both are solid, but they kept telling me what was wrong, keyword density too low, meta too long without ever telling me why the content wasn't ranking. So I built something different.
This tutorial walks through building a WordPress plugin that uses OpenAI to analyze your post content the way a search engine actually thinks about it, checking search intent alignment, content depth, and semantic quality then gives you a score and specific suggestions right inside the post editor.
Once installed, the plugin analyzes each post and:
- Analyze the alignment of search intent
- Verify the content's completeness
- Identify generic or thin sections
- Examine the quality of semantic SEO
- Make suggestions for headings, FAQs, and enhancements
- Give an AI SEO score between 0 and 100.
This is much more advanced than conventional SEO plugins.
Requirements
- WordPress 6.x
- PHP 8.1+
- Composer (optional)
- An OpenAI API key
- Basic WordPress plugin development knowledge
Step 1: Create the WordPress Plugin
Create a new plugin folder:
wp-content/plugins/ai-seo-analyzer/
Create ai-seo-analyzer.php
/**
* Plugin Name: AI SEO Content Quality Analyzer
* Description: Analyzes WordPress content quality using AI and provides SEO recommendations.
* Version: 1.0.0
* Author: phpcmsframework.com
*/
if (!defined('ABSPATH')) exit;
Activate the plugin from WP Admin → Plugins.
Step 2: Add Meta Box in Post Editor
add_action('add_meta_boxes', function () {
add_meta_box(
'ai_seo_box',
'AI SEO Content Analyzer',
'ai_seo_meta_box',
['post', 'page'],
'side',
'high'
);
});
function ai_seo_meta_box($post)
{
echo '<button class="button button-primary" id="ai-seo-analyze">Analyze Content</button>';
echo '<div id="ai-seo-result" style="margin-top:10px;"></div>';
}
Step 3: AJAX Handler (PHP Only)
add_action('wp_ajax_ai_seo_analyze', 'ai_seo_analyze');
function ai_seo_analyze()
{
$postId = intval($_POST['post_id']);
$post = get_post($postId);
if (!$post) {
wp_send_json_error('Post not found');
}
$analysis = ai_seo_analyze_content($post->post_title, $post->post_content);
wp_send_json_success($analysis);
}
Step 4: AI Content Analysis Function
function ai_seo_analyze_content($title, $content)
{
$prompt = "
Analyze the SEO quality of the following content.
Return JSON with:
- seo_score (0-100)
- intent_match (Good/Average/Poor)
- strengths (list)
- weaknesses (list)
- improvement_suggestions (list)
- suggested_headings
- suggested_faqs
Title:
$title
Content:
" . strip_tags($content);
$payload = [
'model' => 'gpt-4o-mini',
'messages' => [
['role' => 'system', 'content' => 'You are an expert SEO auditor.'],
['role' => 'user', 'content' => $prompt]
],
'temperature' => 0.2
];
$ch = curl_init('https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions');
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
'Content-Type: application/json',
'Authorization: Bearer ' . getenv('OPENAI_API_KEY')
],
CURLOPT_POST => true,
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => json_encode($payload)
]);
$response = json_decode(curl_exec($ch), true);
curl_close($ch);
return json_decode($response['choices'][0]['message']['content'], true);
}
Step 5: JavaScript for Admin UI
add_action('admin_footer', function () {
?>
<script>
jQuery(function ($) {
$('#ai-seo-analyze').on('click', function () {
$('#ai-seo-result').html('Analyzing...');
$.post(ajaxurl, {
action: 'ai_seo_analyze',
post_id: $('#post_ID').val()
}, function (res) {
if (res.success) {
let r = res.data;
$('#ai-seo-result').html(`
<strong>SEO Score:</strong> ${r.seo_score}/100<br><br>
<strong>Strengths:</strong><ul>${r.strengths.map(i => `<li>${i}</li>`).join('')}</ul>
<strong>Weaknesses:</strong><ul>${r.weaknesses.map(i => `<li>${i}</li>`).join('')}</ul>
`);
} else {
$('#ai-seo-result').html('Error analyzing content.');
}
});
});
});
<?php
});
How It Works (Editor View)
- Open any post or page
- Click “Analyze Content”
- AI reviews search intent, depth, structure
- You get a quality score + fixes
- Update content → re-analyze
Smart Enhancements You Can Add
- Compare against top-ranking competitor URLs
- Detect keyword stuffing vs natural language
- Analyze internal linking opportunities
- Auto-generate missing sections
- Save score history per post
- Bulk audit via WP-CLI
Security & Performance Notes
- Store API key in wp-config.php
- Limit analysis frequency
- Strip shortcodes before sending content
- Cache analysis results
- Use nonces for AJAX calls in production
AI Duplicate Content Detector for Symfony Using PHP and OpenAI Embeddings
If you've been running a Symfony-based blog or CMS for a while, chances are you already have duplicate content. You just don't know it yet. Editors rewrite old articles, documentation pages grow organically, and over time you end up with five pages that all basically say the same thing, just worded differently.
The usual approach to catching this, string matching or exact text comparison, falls apart the moment someone changes a few words. Two articles can be 90% the same in meaning and a simple diff won't flag either of them.
That's where OpenAI embeddings come in. Instead of comparing words, we compare meaning. In this tutorial, I'll show you how to build a duplicate content detector in Symfony that uses vector embeddings and cosine similarity to catch semantically similar articles, even when the wording is completely different..
What We're Constructing
After completing this guide, you will have:
- AI-produced embeddings for every article
- A cosine similarity-based semantic similarity checker
- A command for the console to find duplicates
- A threshold for similarity (e.g., 85%+) to mark content
- Any Symfony CMS can be integrated with this foundation.
This is effective for:
- Blogs
- Knowledge bases
- Portals for documentation
- Pages with e-commerce content
Requirements
- Symfony 6 or 7
- PHP 8.1+
- Doctrine ORM
- MySQL / PostgreSQL
- An OpenAI API key
Step 1: Add an Embedding Column to Your Entity
Assume an Article entity.
src/Entity/Article.php
#[ORM\Column(type: 'json', nullable: true)]
private ?array $embedding = null;
public function getEmbedding(): ?array
{
return $this->embedding;
}
public function setEmbedding(?array $embedding): self
{
$this->embedding = $embedding;
return $this;
}
Create and run migration:
php bin/console make:migration
php bin/console doctrine:migrations:migrate
Step 2: Generate Embeddings for Articles
Create a Symfony command:
php bin/console make:command app:generate-article-embeddings
GenerateArticleEmbeddingsCommand.php
namespace App\Command;
use App\Entity\Article;
use Doctrine\ORM\EntityManagerInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Command\Command;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Output\OutputInterface;
class GenerateArticleEmbeddingsCommand extends Command
{
protected static $defaultName = 'app:generate-article-embeddings';
public function __construct(
private EntityManagerInterface $em,
private string $apiKey
) {
parent::__construct();
}
protected function execute(InputInterface $input, OutputInterface $output): int
{
$articles = $this->em->getRepository(Article::class)->findAll();
foreach ($articles as $article) {
if ($article->getEmbedding()) {
continue;
}
$embedding = $this->getEmbedding(
strip_tags($article->getContent())
);
$article->setEmbedding($embedding);
$this->em->persist($article);
$output->writeln("Embedding generated for article ID {$article->getId()}");
}
$this->em->flush();
return Command::SUCCESS;
}
private function getEmbedding(string $text): array
{
$payload = [
'model' => 'text-embedding-3-small',
'input' => mb_substr($text, 0, 4000)
];
$ch = curl_init('https://api.openai.com/v1/embeddings');
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
"Content-Type: application/json",
"Authorization: Bearer {$this->apiKey}"
],
CURLOPT_POST => true,
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => json_encode($payload)
]);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
return json_decode($response, true)['data'][0]['embedding'] ?? [];
}
}
Store the API key in .env.local
OPENAI_API_KEY=your_key_here
Step 3: Cosine Similarity Helper
Create a reusable helper.
src/Service/SimilarityService.php
namespace App\Service;
class SimilarityService
{
public function cosine(array $a, array $b): float
{
$dot = 0;
$magA = 0;
$magB = 0;
foreach ($a as $i => $val) {
$dot += $val * $b[$i];
$magA += $val ** 2;
$magB += $b[$i] ** 2;
}
return $dot / (sqrt($magA) * sqrt($magB));
}
}
Step 4: Detect Duplicate Articles
Create another command:
php bin/console make:command app:detect-duplicates
DetectDuplicateContentCommand.php
namespace App\Command;
use App\Entity\Article;
use App\Service\SimilarityService;
use Doctrine\ORM\EntityManagerInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Command\Command;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Output\OutputInterface;
class DetectDuplicateContentCommand extends Command
{
protected static $defaultName = 'app:detect-duplicates';
public function __construct(
private EntityManagerInterface $em,
private SimilarityService $similarity
) {
parent::__construct();
}
protected function execute(InputInterface $input, OutputInterface $output): int
{
$articles = $this->em->getRepository(Article::class)->findAll();
$threshold = 0.85;
foreach ($articles as $i => $a) {
foreach ($articles as $j => $b) {
if ($j <= $i) continue;
if (!$a->getEmbedding() || !$b->getEmbedding()) continue;
$score = $this->similarity->cosine(
$a->getEmbedding(),
$b->getEmbedding()
);
if ($score >= $threshold) {
$output->writeln(
sprintf(
"⚠ Duplicate detected (%.2f): Article %d and %d",
$score,
$a->getId(),
$b->getId()
)
);
}
}
}
return Command::SUCCESS;
}
}
Step 5: Run via Cron (Optional)
To scan regularly, add a cron job:
0 2 * * * php /path/to/project/bin/console app:detect-duplicates
You can store results in a table or send email notifications.
Example Output
Duplicate detected (0.91): Article 12 and 37
Duplicate detected (0.88): Article 18 and 44
Useful Improvements
This system can be expanded with:
- Admin UI for reviewing duplicates
- Canonical page suggestions automatically
- Weighting of the title and excerpt
- Similarity detection at the section level
- Using Messenger for batch processing
- Large-scale vector databases
Cost & Performance Advice
- Create embeddings for each article only once.
- Before embedding, limit the length of the content.
- Ignore the draft content
- Cache similarity findings
- For big datasets, use queues.
AI Category Recommendation System for Drupal 11 Using PHP and OpenAI
Categorization in Drupal is one of those things that looks fine on the surface but gets messy fast. Editors are busy, categories get picked in a hurry, and before long you've got a dozen articles filed under the wrong taxonomy term or spread inconsistently across three different ones that mean almost the same thing.
The fix isn't enforcing stricter rules on editors. It's removing the guesswork entirely.
In this tutorial, I'll walk you through building a custom Drupal 11 module that reads a node's actual content and uses OpenAI to pick the most appropriate category automatically, no manual selection needed.
It hooks into the node save process, pulls your existing taxonomy terms, and asks the AI to match the content against them. The result gets assigned before the node is stored. It's a small module but it solves a real problem, especially on sites with large editorial teams or high publishing volume.
What This Module Will Do
Our AI category system will:
- Analyze node body content on save
- Compare it against existing taxonomy terms
- Recommend the most relevant category
- Automatically assign it (or display it to editors)
Use cases include:
- Blog posts
- Documentation pages
- News articles
- Knowledge bases
Prerequisites
Make sure you have:
- Drupal 11
- PHP 8.1+
- Composer
- A taxonomy vocabulary (example: categories)
- An OpenAI API key
Step 1: Create the Custom Module
Create a new folder:
/modules/custom/ai_category/
Inside it, create the below files:
- ai_category.info.yml
- ai_category.module
ai_category.info.yml
name: AI Category Recommendation
type: module
description: Automatically recommend and assign taxonomy categories using AI.
core_version_requirement: ^11
package: Custom
version: 1.0.0
Step 2: Hook Into Node Save
We’ll use hook_entity_presave() to analyze content before it’s stored.
ai_category.module
use Drupal\Core\Entity\EntityInterface;
use Drupal\taxonomy\Entity\Term;
/**
* Implements hook_entity_presave().
*/
function ai_category_entity_presave(EntityInterface $entity) {
if ($entity->getEntityTypeId() !== 'node') {
return;
}
// Only apply to articles (adjust as needed)
if ($entity->bundle() !== 'article') {
return;
}
$body = $entity->get('body')->value ?? '';
if (empty($body)) {
return;
}
$category = ai_category_recommend_term($body);
if ($category) {
$entity->set('field_category', ['target_id' => $category]);
}
}
This ensures our logic runs only for specific content types and avoids unnecessary processing.
Step 3: Ask AI for Category Recommendation
We’ll send the node content plus a list of available categories to OpenAI and ask it to pick the best one.
function ai_category_recommend_term(string $text): ?int {
$apiKey = 'YOUR_OPENAI_API_KEY';
$endpoint = 'https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions';
$terms = \Drupal::entityTypeManager()
->getStorage('taxonomy_term')
->loadTree('categories');
$categoryNames = array_map(fn($t) => $t->name, $terms);
$prompt = "Choose the best category from this list:\n"
. implode(', ', $categoryNames)
. "\n\nContent:\n"
. strip_tags($text)
. "\n\nReturn only the category name.";
$payload = [
"model" => "gpt-4o-mini",
"messages" => [
["role" => "system", "content" => "You are a content classification assistant."],
["role" => "user", "content" => $prompt]
],
"temperature" => 0
];
$ch = curl_init($endpoint);
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
"Content-Type: application/json",
"Authorization: Bearer {$apiKey}"
],
CURLOPT_POST => true,
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => json_encode($payload),
CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 15
]);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
$data = json_decode($response, true);
$chosen = trim($data['choices'][0]['message']['content'] ?? '');
foreach ($terms as $term) {
if (strcasecmp($term->name, $chosen) === 0) {
return $term->tid;
}
}
return null;
}
What’s happening here:
- Drupal loads all available categories
- AI receives both content + allowed categories
- AI returns one matching category name
- Drupal maps it back to a taxonomy term ID
Step 4: Enable the Module
- Place the module in /modules/custom/ai_category
- Go to Extend → Enable module
- Enable AI Category Recommendation
- That’s it — no UI needed yet.
Step 5: Test It
- Create a new Article
- Write content related to PHP, Drupal, AI, or CMS topics
- Click Save
- The Category field is auto-filled
Example:
Article content:
“This tutorial explains how to build a custom Drupal 11 module using PHP hooks…”
AI-selected category:
Drupal
Optional Enhancements
Once the basics work, you can extend this system:
- Show AI recommendation as a suggestion, not auto-assignment
- Add admin settings (API key, confidence threshold)
- Use Queue API for bulk classification
- Switch to embeddings for higher accuracy
- Log category confidence scores
- Support multi-term assignment
Security & Performance Tips
- Never hard-code API keys (use settings.php or environment variables)
- Limit text length before sending to AI
- Cache recommendations to reduce API calls
- Add fallbacks if the AI response is invalid
AI Auto-Tagging in Laravel Using OpenAI Embeddings + Cron Jobs
Manually tagging blog posts works fine when you have ten articles. At a hundred, it gets inconsistent. At a thousand, it's basically broken. Tags get applied differently depending on who wrote the post, and over time your taxonomy becomes a mess that's hard to search and harder to maintain.
I wanted a way to fix this without retagging everything by hand. The approach I landed on uses OpenAI embeddings to represent both post content and tag names as vectors, then assigns tags based on how closely they match in meaning.
The whole thing runs as a Laravel queue job triggered by a cron, so new posts get tagged automatically without any manual step.
In this tutorial I'll walk you through the full setup: generating tag vectors, storing post embeddings, running the cosine similarity match, and wiring it all together with Laravel's scheduler.
What We're Constructing
You'll construct:
- Table of Tag Vector - The meaning of each tag (such as "PHP", "Laravel", "Security", and "AI") will be represented by an embedding vector created by AI.
- A Generator for Post Embedding - We generate an embedding for the post content whenever a new post is saved.
- A Matching Algorithm - The system determines which post embeddings are closest by comparing them with tag embeddings.
- A Cron Job -The system automatically assigns AI-recommended tags every hour (or on any schedule).
This is ideal for:
- Custom blogs made with Laravel
- Headless CMS configurations
- Tagging categories in e-commerce
- Auto-classification of knowledge bases
- Websites for documentation
Now let's get started.
Step 1: Create Migration for Tag Embeddings
Run:
php artisan make:migration create_tag_embeddings_table
Migration:
public function up()
{
Schema::create('tag_embeddings', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->id();
$table->unsignedBigInteger('tag_id')->unique();
$table->json('embedding'); // store vector
$table->timestamps();
});
}
Run:
php artisan migrate
Step 2: Generate Embeddings for Tags
Create a command:
php artisan make:command GenerateTagEmbeddings
Add logic:
public function handle()
{
$tags = Tag::all();
foreach ($tags as $tag) {
$vector = $this->embed($tag->name);
TagEmbedding::updateOrCreate(
['tag_id' => $tag->id],
['embedding' => json_encode($vector)]
);
$this->info("Embedding created for tag: {$tag->name}");
}
}
private function embed($text)
{
$client = new \GuzzleHttp\Client();
$response = $client->post("https://api.openai.com/v1/embeddings", [
"headers" => [
"Authorization" => "Bearer " . env('OPENAI_API_KEY'),
"Content-Type" => "application/json",
],
"json" => [
"model" => "text-embedding-3-large",
"input" => $text
]
]);
$data = json_decode($response->getBody(), true);
return $data['data'][0]['embedding'] ?? [];
}
Run once:
php artisan generate:tag-embeddings
Now all tags have AI meaning vectors.
Step 3: Save Embeddings for Each Post
Add to your Post model observer or event.
$post->embedding = $this->embed($post->content);
$post->save();
Migration for posts:
$table->json('embedding')->nullable();
Step 4: Matching Algorithm (Post → Tags)
Create a helper class:
class EmbeddingHelper
{
public static function cosineSimilarity($a, $b)
{
$dot = array_sum(array_map(fn($i, $j) => $i * $j, $a, $b));
$magnitudeA = sqrt(array_sum(array_map(fn($i) => $i * $i, $a)));
$magnitudeB = sqrt(array_sum(array_map(fn($i) => $i * $i, $b)));
return $dot / ($magnitudeA * $magnitudeB);
}
}
Step 5: Assign Tags Automatically (Queue Job)
Create job:
php artisan make:job AutoTagPost
Job logic:
public function handle()
{
$postEmbedding = json_decode($this->post->embedding, true);
$tags = TagEmbedding::with('tag')->get();
$scores = [];
foreach ($tags as $te) {
$sim = EmbeddingHelper::cosineSimilarity(
$postEmbedding,
json_decode($te->embedding, true)
);
$scores[$te->tag->id] = $sim;
}
arsort($scores); // highest similarity first
$best = array_slice($scores, 0, 5, true); // top 5 matches
$this->post->tags()->sync(array_keys($best));
}
Step 6: Cron Job to Process New Posts
Add to app/Console/Kernel.php:
protected function schedule(Schedule $schedule)
{
$schedule->command('ai:autotag-posts')->hourly();
}
Create command:
php artisan make:command AutoTagPosts
Command logic:
public function handle()
{
$posts = Post::whereNull('tags_assigned_at')->get();
foreach ($posts as $post) {
AutoTagPost::dispatch($post);
$post->update(['tags_assigned_at' => now()]);
}
}
Now, every hour, Laravel processes all new posts and assigns AI-selected tags.
Step 7: Test the Full Flow
- Create tags in admin
- Run: php artisan generate:tag-embeddings
- Create a new blog post
- Cron or queue runs
- Post automatically gets AI-selected tags
Useful enhancements
- Weight tags by frequency
- Use title + excerpt, not full content
- Add confidence scores to DB
- Auto-create new tags using AI
- Add a manual override UI
- Cache embeddings for performance
- Batch process 1,000+ posts
Building an AI-Powered Product Description Generator in Magento 2 Using PHP & OpenAI
I was helping a client clean up their Magento store last month and they had over 400 products with either no description or a copy-pasted manufacturer blurb that was identical across 30 items. Writing them manually was not happening.
So I threw together a quick module that puts a button on the product edit page. You click it, it grabs whatever attributes are already filled in and sends them to OpenAI, and a few seconds later the description fields are populated.
Not perfect every time, but good enough as a starting point that you just edit rather than write from scratch.
This tutorial shows you how I built it. The module itself is pretty lightweight, maybe 6 files total, and it works on Magento 2.4 with PHP 8.1.
What we are going to build
- A button in Magento 2 for the admin that says "Generate AI Description"
- An AJAX controller that sends product attributes to OpenAI
- A description, short description, and meta content made by AI
- Automatic insertion into Magento product fields
- Optional: button to regenerate to get better results
Requirements
- Magento 2.4+
- PHP 8.1+
- Composer
- An OpenAI API key
- Basic module development skills
Step 1: Create a Magento Module Skeleton
Create your module folders:
app/code/AlbertAI/ProductDescription/
Inside it, create registration.php
use Magento\Framework\Component\ComponentRegistrar;
ComponentRegistrar::register(
ComponentRegistrar::MODULE,
'AlbertAI_ProductDescription',
__DIR__
);
Then create etc/module.xml
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:framework:Module/etc/module.xsd">
<module name="AlbertAI_ProductDescription" setup_version="1.0.0"/>
</config>
Enable the module:
php bin/magento setup:upgrade
Step 2: On the Product Edit Page, add a button that says "Generate Description."
Create a file: view/adminhtml/layout/catalog_product_edit.xml
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<page xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:framework:View/Layout/etc/page_configuration.xsd">
<body>
<referenceBlock name="product_form">
<block class="AlbertAI\ProductDescription\Block\Adminhtml\GenerateButton"
name="ai_description_button"/>
</referenceBlock>
</body>
</page>
Step 3: Create the Admin Button Block
File: Block/Adminhtml/GenerateButton.php
namespace AlbertAI\ProductDescription\Block\Adminhtml;
use Magento\Backend\Block\Template;
class GenerateButton extends Template
{
protected $_template = 'AlbertAI_ProductDescription::button.phtml';
}
Step 4: The Button Markup
File: view/adminhtml/templates/button.phtml
<button id="ai-generate-btn" class="action-default scalable primary">
Generate AI Description
</button>
<script>
require(['jquery'], function ($) {
$('#ai-generate-btn').click(function () {
const productId = $('#product_id').val();
$.ajax({
url: 'getUrl("ai/generator/description") ?>',
type: 'POST',
data: { product_id: productId },
success: function (res) {
if (res.success) {
$('#description').val(res.description);
$('#short_description').val(res.short_description);
$('#meta_description').val(res.meta_description);
alert("AI description ready!");
} else {
alert("Error: " + res.error);
}
}
});
});
});
</script>
Step 5: Create an Admin Route
File: etc/adminhtml/routes.xml
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:framework:App/etc/routes.xsd">
<router id="admin">
<route id="ai" frontName="ai">
<module name="AlbertAI_ProductDescription"/>
</route>
</router>
</config>
Step 6: Build the AI Controller That Calls OpenAI
File: Controller/Adminhtml/Generator/Description.php
namespace AlbertAI\ProductDescription\Controller\Adminhtml\Generator;
use Magento\Backend\App\Action;
use Magento\Catalog\Api\ProductRepositoryInterface;
use Magento\Framework\Controller\Result\JsonFactory;
class Description extends Action
{
protected $jsonFactory;
protected $productRepo;
private $apiKey = "YOUR_OPENAI_API_KEY";
public function __construct(
Action\Context $context,
ProductRepositoryInterface $productRepo,
JsonFactory $jsonFactory
) {
parent::__construct($context);
$this->productRepo = $productRepo;
$this->jsonFactory = $jsonFactory;
}
public function execute()
{
$result = $this->jsonFactory->create();
$id = $this->getRequest()->getParam('product_id');
if (!$id) {
return $result->setData(['success' => false, 'error' => 'Product not found']);
}
$product = $this->productRepo->getById($id);
$prompt = sprintf(
"Write an SEO-friendly product description.\nProduct Name: %s\nBrand: %s\nFeatures: %s\nOutput: Long description, short description, and meta description.",
$product->getName(),
$product->getAttributeText('manufacturer'),
implode(', ', $product->getAttributes())
);
$generated = $this->generateText($prompt);
return $result->setData([
'success' => true,
'description' => $generated['long'],
'short_description' => $generated['short'],
'meta_description' => $generated['meta']
]);
}
private function generateText($prompt)
{
$body = [
"model" => "gpt-4.1-mini",
"messages" => [
["role" => "user", "content" => $prompt]
]
];
$ch = curl_init("https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions");
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
"Content-Type: application/json",
"Authorization: Bearer " . $this->apiKey
],
CURLOPT_POST => true,
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => json_encode($body)
]);
$response = json_decode(curl_exec($ch), true);
curl_close($ch);
$text = $response['choices'][0]['message']['content'] ?? "No response";
// Split via sections
return [
'long' => $this->extract($text, 'Long'),
'short' => $this->extract($text, 'Short'),
'meta' => $this->extract($text, 'Meta')
];
}
private function extract($text, $type)
{
preg_match("/$type Description:\s*(.+)/i", $text, $m);
return $m[1] ?? $text;
}
}
Step 7: Test It
- Go to Magento Admin → Catalog → Products
- Edit any product
- Click “Generate AI Description”
- Descriptions fields will auto-fill in seconds
Bonus Tips
You can extend the module to generate:
- Product titles
- Bullet points
- FAQ sections
- Meta keywords
- Category descriptions
AI-Powered Semantic Search in Symfony Using PHP and OpenAI Embeddings
LIKE/MATCH queries have a hard ceiling. I've seen Symfony projects where the client kept complaining that search "doesn't work" and the real issue was never the code, it was that users don't search the way you index. They type "how to reset password" and your database has an article titled "Account Recovery Guide." Zero overlap, zero results.
Switching to OpenAI embeddings fixes this at the architecture level. Instead of matching strings, you convert both the query and your content into vectors and measure how close they are in meaning.
A 1536-dimension float array per article sounds heavy but in practice it's stored as JSON in a text column and the whole thing runs fine on a standard MySQL setup for sites with a few thousand articles.
This tutorial wires it up in Symfony using a console command to generate embeddings and a controller endpoint to run the search. No external vector database needed to get started.
Prerequisites
Before we start, make sure you have:
- Symfony 6 or 7
- PHP 8.1+
- Composer
- A MySQL or SQLite database
- An OpenAI API key
Step 1: Create a New Symfony Command
We’ll use a console command to generate embeddings for your existing content (articles, pages, etc.).
Inside your Symfony project, run:
php bin/console make:command app:generate-embeddings
This will create a new file in src/Command/GenerateEmbeddingsCommand.php.
Replace its contents with the following:
src/Command/GenerateEmbeddingsCommand.php
namespace App\Command;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Attribute\AsCommand;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Command\Command;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Output\OutputInterface;
use Doctrine\ORM\EntityManagerInterface;
use App\Entity\Article;
#[AsCommand(
name: 'app:generate-embeddings',
description: 'Generate AI embeddings for all articles'
)]
class GenerateEmbeddingsCommand extends Command
{
private $em;
private $apiKey = 'YOUR_OPENAI_API_KEY';
private $endpoint = 'https://api.openai.com/v1/embeddings';
public function __construct(EntityManagerInterface $em)
{
$this->em = $em;
parent::__construct();
}
protected function execute(InputInterface $input, OutputInterface $output): int
{
$articles = $this->em->getRepository(Article::class)->findAll();
foreach ($articles as $article) {
$embedding = $this->getEmbedding($article->getContent());
if ($embedding) {
$article->setEmbedding(json_encode($embedding));
$this->em->persist($article);
$output->writeln("✅ Generated embedding for article ID {$article->getId()}");
}
}
$this->em->flush();
return Command::SUCCESS;
}
private function getEmbedding(string $text): ?array
{
$payload = [
'model' => 'text-embedding-3-small',
'input' => $text,
];
$ch = curl_init($this->endpoint);
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
"Content-Type: application/json",
"Authorization: Bearer {$this->apiKey}"
],
CURLOPT_POST => true,
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => json_encode($payload)
]);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
$data = json_decode($response, true);
return $data['data'][0]['embedding'] ?? null;
}
}
This command takes every article from the database, sends its content to OpenAI’s Embedding API, and saves the resulting vector in a database field.
Step 2: Update the Entity
Assume your entity is App\Entity\Article.
We’ll add a new column called embedding to store the vector data.
src/Entity/Article.php
#[ORM\Column(type: 'text', nullable: true)]
private ?string $embedding = null;
public function getEmbedding(): ?string
{
return $this->embedding;
}
public function setEmbedding(?string $embedding): self
{
$this->embedding = $embedding;
return $this;
}
Then update your database:
php bin/console make:migration
php bin/console doctrine:migrations:migrate
Step 3: Create a Search Endpoint
We'll now include a basic controller that takes a search query, turns it into an embedding, and determines which article is the most semantically similar.
src/Controller/SearchController.php
namespace App\Controller;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\Routing\Annotation\Route;
use Doctrine\ORM\EntityManagerInterface;
use App\Entity\Article;
class SearchController extends AbstractController
{
private $apiKey = 'YOUR_OPENAI_API_KEY';
private $endpoint = 'https://api.openai.com/v1/embeddings';
#[Route('/search', name: 'ai_search')]
public function search(Request $request, EntityManagerInterface $em): Response
{
$query = $request->query->get('q');
if (!$query) {
return $this->json(['error' => 'Please provide a search query']);
}
$queryVector = $this->getEmbedding($query);
$articles = $em->getRepository(Article::class)->findAll();
$results = [];
foreach ($articles as $article) {
if ($article->getEmbedding()) {
$score = $this->cosineSimilarity(
$queryVector,
json_decode($article->getEmbedding(), true)
);
$results[] = [
'id' => $article->getId(),
'title' => $article->getTitle(),
'similarity' => $score,
];
}
}
usort($results, fn($a, $b) => $b['similarity'] <=> $a['similarity']);
return $this->json(array_slice($results, 0, 5)); // top 5 results
}
private function getEmbedding(string $text): array
{
$payload = [
'model' => 'text-embedding-3-small',
'input' => $text,
];
$ch = curl_init($this->endpoint);
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
"Content-Type: application/json",
"Authorization: Bearer {$this->apiKey}"
],
CURLOPT_POST => true,
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => json_encode($payload)
]);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
$data = json_decode($response, true);
return $data['data'][0]['embedding'] ?? [];
}
private function cosineSimilarity(array $a, array $b): float
{
$dot = 0; $magA = 0; $magB = 0;
for ($i = 0; $i < count($a); $i++) {
$dot += $a[$i] * $b[$i];
$magA += $a[$i] ** 2;
$magB += $b[$i] ** 2;
}
return $dot / (sqrt($magA) * sqrt($magB));
}
}
Now, even if the articles don't contain the exact keywords, your /search?q=php framework tutorial endpoint will return those that are most semantically similar to the query.
Step 4: Try It Out
Run the below command.
php bin/console app:generate-embeddings
This generates embeddings for all articles.
Now visit the following URL.
http://your-symfony-app.local/search?q=learn symfony mvc
The top five most pertinent articles will be listed in a JSON response, arranged by meaning rather than keyword.
Real-World Applications
- A more intelligent search within a CMS or knowledge base
- AI-supported matching of FAQs
- Semantic suggestions ("you might also like..."
- Clustering of topics or duplicates in admin panels
Tips for Security and Performance
- Reuse and cache embeddings (avoid making repeated API calls for the same content).
- Keep your API key in.env.local (OPENAI_API_KEY=your_key).
- For better performance, think about using a vector database such as Pinecone, Weaviate, or Qdrant if you have thousands of records.
AI Text Summarization for Drupal 11 Using PHP and OpenAI API
Drupal's body field has a built-in summary subfield that almost nobody fills in properly. On high-volume editorial sites I've worked on, it's either blank, copy-pasted from the first paragraph, or written by someone who clearly didn't read the article. It shows up in teasers, RSS feeds, and meta descriptions, so bad summaries actually hurt.
The fix is straightforward. Hook into hook_entity_presave, grab the body content, send it to OpenAI, write the result back into body->summary before the node hits the database. Editors never have to touch it, and the summaries are actually coherent.
This is a single-file custom module. No services, no config forms, no dependencies beyond cURL. If you want to wire it up properly with Drupal's config system later you can, but this gets you running in under 20 minutes.
Prerequisites
- Drupal 11
- PHP 8.1 or higher
- Composer
- cURL enabled
- An OpenAI API key
Step 1: Create a Custom Module
Create a new module called ai_summary.
/modules/custom/ai_summary/Inside that folder, create two files:
- ai_summary.info.yml
- ai_summary.module
ai_summary.info.yml
Add the below code in the info.yml file.
name: AI Summary type: module description: Automatically generate summaries for Drupal nodes using OpenAI API. core_version_requirement: ^11 package: Custom version: 1.0.0
ai_summary.module
This is where the logic lives.
To run our code just before a node is saved we will use hook_entity_presave of Drupal.
use Drupal\node\Entity\Node;
use Drupal\Core\Entity\EntityInterface;
/**
* Implements hook_entity_presave().
*/
function ai_summary_entity_presave(EntityInterface $entity) {
if ($entity->getEntityTypeId() !== 'node') {
return;
}
// Only summarize articles (you can change this as needed)
if ($entity->bundle() !== 'article') {
return;
}
$body = $entity->get('body')->value ?? '';
if (empty($body)) {
return;
}
// Generate AI summary
$summary = ai_summary_generate_summary($body);
if ($summary) {
// Save it in the summary field
$entity->get('body')->summary = $summary;
}
}
/**
* Generate summary using OpenAI API.
*/
function ai_summary_generate_summary($text) {
$api_key = 'YOUR_OPENAI_API_KEY';
$endpoint = 'https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions';
$payload = [
"model" => "gpt-4o-mini",
"messages" => [
["role" => "system", "content" => "Summarize the following text in 2-3 sentences. Keep it concise and human-readable."],
["role" => "user", "content" => $text]
],
"temperature" => 0.7
];
$ch = curl_init($endpoint);
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
"Content-Type: application/json",
"Authorization: Bearer {$api_key}"
],
CURLOPT_POST => true,
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => json_encode($payload),
CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 15
]);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
$data = json_decode($response, true);
return trim($data['choices'][0]['message']['content'] ?? '');
}
This functionality performs three primary functions:
- Identifies article saving in Drupal.
- Sends the content to OpenAI to be summarized.
- The summary is stored in the body summary field of the article.
Step 2: Enable the Module
- Place the new module folder directly in /modules/custom/.
- In Drupal Admin panel, go to: Extend → Install new module (or Enable module).
- Check AI Summary and turn it on.
Step 3: Test the AI Summary
- Select Content -> Add content -> Article.
- Enter the long paragraph in the body field.
- Save the article.
- On reloading the page, open it one more time — the summary field will be already filled automatically.
Example:
Input Body:
Artificial Intelligence has been changing how developers build and deploy applications...
Generated Summary:
AI is reshaping software development by automating repetitive tasks and improving decision-making through data-driven insights.
Step 4: Extend It Further
The following are some of the ideas that can be used to improve the module:
- Add settings: Add a form to enable the user to add the API key and the select the type of model.
- Queue processing: Queue processing Use the drugndrup queue API to process the existing content in batches.
- Custom field storage: Store summaries in object now: field_ai_summary.
- Views integration: Show or hide articles in terms of length of summary or its presence.
Security & Performance Tips
- Never hardcode your API key but keep it in the configuration or in the.env file of Drupal.
- Shorten long text in order to send (OpenAI token limit = cost).
- Gracefully manage API timeouts.
- Watchdoging errors to log API.
Building a Sentiment Analysis Plugin in Joomla Using PHP and OpenAI API
Joomla's content plugin system is underused. Most developers reach for components when a simple content plugin hooked into onContentBeforeSave would do the job in a fraction of the code.
This tutorial is a good example of that. The idea is simple: every time an article is saved, we send the text to OpenAI and get back one word, positive, negative, or neutral.
That result gets appended to the meta keywords field and flashed as an admin message. Nothing fancy, but on a community site or news portal where editors are processing dozens of submissions a day, having that sentiment label right in the save workflow saves real time.
Two files, no Composer, no service container. Just a manifest XML and a single PHP class extending CMSPlugin.
What You’ll Need
Before we start, make sure you have:
- Joomla 5.x installed
- PHP 8.1 or newer
- cURL enabled on your server
- An OpenAI API key
Once that’s ready, let’s code.
Step 1: Creation of the Plugin
In your Joomala system, make a new folder within the system under the name of the plugin:
/plugins/content/aisentiment/
Thereupon in that folder generate two files:
- aisentiment.php
- aisentiment.xml
aisentiment.xml
This is the manifest file that the Joomla plugin identifies the identity of this particular plugin and the files that should be loaded into it.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><extension type="plugin" version="5.0" group="content" method="upgrade">
<name>plg_content_aisentiment</name>
<author>PHP CMS Framework</author>
<version>1.0.0</version>
<description>Analyze sentiment of comments or articles using OpenAI API.</description>
<files>
<filename plugin="aisentiment">aisentiment.php</filename>
</files>
</extension>
Step 2: Add the PHP Logic
Now let’s write the plugin code.
aisentiment.php
Step 3:Install and activate the Plugin.
Step 4: Test It
This product is out of my expectations and it works excellently!
Bonus Tips:
- Store your API key securely in Joomla’s configuration or an environment variable (not hard-coded).
- Add caching if you’re analyzing large volumes of content.
- Trim long text before sending to OpenAI to save API tokens.
- Handle failed API calls gracefully with proper fallbacks.
Real-World Use Cases:
- Highlight positive user reviews automatically.
- Flag negative feedback for moderation.
- Generate sentiment dashboards for community comments.
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