Phillip Kalusek

Laravel Developer

I'm a software developer and project manager @ byte5 with 10+ years of experience in the industry. My passion lies in building Laravel and Livewire applications — it's where I feel most at home. Here I write about what I learn along the way.

Phillip Kalusek
Laracon 2026 • Dave Pelham

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The Unquestioned #[Computed]

Every AI-assisted performance refactor of a Livewire component ends the same way: #[Computed] on every method. Here is what the attribute actually does, when it helps, and the two questions to ask before you keep one.

livewire laravel performance ai

Verification Becomes a First-Class Engineering Discipline

AI writes more of our code every day, and trust in that code is quietly eroding. Responsibility never actually moves to the model — so verification has to become the discipline we take seriously.

ai craft code-review testing

Handling Nullable Strings in Livewire

An empty input in Livewire saves an empty string, not null. It fails silently, quietly splitting your nullable columns in two — here's why Livewire does it on purpose, and the Form base class that fixes it.

livewire laravel php

Adaptive Livewire Components with Wireable & Modelable

How to build one Livewire component that adapts its UI per page — using Wireable, Modelable, and capability interfaces instead of prop explosion.

livewire laravel php architecture

Template Method in Laravel

How to structure export processes in Laravel using the Template Method pattern — one base class, many variants, zero duplication.

laravel design-patterns php

Discovery-Based Architecture in PHP

Decoupled matching via PHP Attributes and Reflection, explained with webhook event handlers. How to build flexible, auto-discovering structures instead of growing if/match blocks.

php laravel architecture