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Reference
CLI
ephpm php

ephpm php

Run the embedded PHP CLI. All arguments after php are passed straight through to the embedded interpreter — no shell wrapping, no separate PHP install required.

Synopsis 

ephpm php [PHP_ARGS...]

Examples 

# Inline expression
ephpm php -r 'echo PHP_VERSION;'

# Run a script
ephpm php script.php

# Laravel
ephpm php artisan migrate
ephpm php artisan tinker

# Print loaded modules
ephpm php -m

Phar support and the SAPI caveat

The phar extension is compiled in, and .phar archives load and execute: ephpm php app.phar runs the archive’s stub, and phar:// streams work.

However, ephpm php reports PHP_SAPI as ephpm, not cli — and some popular phar tools refuse to run on any SAPI other than cli:

  • WP-CLI (wp-cli.phar) exits immediately: “WP-CLI only works correctly from the command line, using the ‘cli’ PHP SAPI.”
  • Composer (composer.phar) aborts: “Composer cannot be run safely on non-CLI SAPIs with register_argc_argv=On.”

For those tools, use a stock php CLI binary. Phars that don’t gate on PHP_SAPI run fine under ephpm php.

Why use ephpm php?

The embedded PHP interpreter is the same runtime that serves HTTP requests. Running CLI commands through ephpm php means:

  • One PHP version to install — the one baked into the binary
  • Same compiled-in extensions: bcmath, calendar, ctype, curl, dom, exif, fileinfo, filter, gd, hash, iconv, mbstring, mysqli, mysqlnd, openssl, pcntl, pcre, pdo, pdo_mysql, phar, posix, session, simplexml, sodium, tokenizer, xml, xmlreader, xmlwriter, zip, zlib
  • Same php.ini overrides as the server (from [php] ini_overrides in your config)
  • No drift between dev, CI, and production PHP versions

How it works

ephpm php runs the embedded PHP runtime (the ephpm SAPI) in CLI mode via FFI. It’s not a wrapper around an external php binary. The argument list is forwarded as-is, including -r, -d, file paths, and trailing application arguments — script arguments are registered as $argv/$argc (and mirrored into $_SERVER, with PHP_SELF/SCRIPT_NAME/SCRIPT_FILENAME set to the script path) exactly as the stock php CLI does, so Symfony Console and artisan see their arguments. Shebang lines (#!/usr/bin/env php) are skipped.

Windows note

On Windows, PHP is statically linked into ephpm.exe (php8embed.lib, static CRT) — no DLL is embedded, extracted, or written to disk at runtime. There’s nothing to install; ephpm php works out of the box.

See also

ephpm serveephpm kv