CodeIgniter 3#

The lightweight and popular CodeIgniter 3 (CI3) framework has its own quirks and conventions that many PHP editors may not handle correctly.
PHP Tools for Visual Studio Code now includes full, built-in support for CodeIgniter 3.

Setup#

There is no setup required to enable CodeIgniter 3 support in PHP Tools.
Once you open a CI3 project in Visual Studio Code with the PHP Tools extension installed, it will automatically detect the framework and enable all related features.

You can verify this in the OUTPUT panel:

Recommendations#

Although no setup is necessary, adding the following .vscode/settings.json file can improve your development experience:

{
    "php.problems.scope": "all",
    "php.version": "7.4",
    "php.problems.exclude": {
        "system/": true,
        "vendor/": true
    }
}

• Analyze the entire code base (PREMIUM) for potential issues.
• Ensure the editor and debugger treat your code as compatible with PHP 7.4.
• Ignore problems in the /system folder, as CI3 has several known mistyped PHPDoc annotations that may generate false warnings.
• Ignore problems in the /vendor folder, especially in /vendor/composer/ClassLoader.php, which refers to the missing apcu extension.

Code Completion#

The editor automatically recognizes loaded models, classes, and libraries
(starting from version 1.62 pre-release and in all versions 1.63+).
This enables typed property completion for controller instances:

In addition, PHP Tools provides completion for model names and view names:

Code Problems#

Although the editor detects most common cases of loaded libraries and models,
some dynamically created properties may still appear as undefined or unknown.

A recommended workaround is to annotate such properties using a PHPDoc comment above your controller:

Run & Debug#

Requires the Xdebug PHP extension.

You can start debugging immediately — no configuration or launch profile is required.
Simply press F5 to run the application:

This command starts PHP’s built-in development server using your local PHP binaries
and automatically opens the application in your browser.

To customize how your application starts, refer to the Launch Profiles documentation.

Profile a CodeIgniter 3 Application#

Requires the Xdebug PHP extension.
Requires the PHP Profiler VSCode extension (installed by default).

You can profile a CI3 application using the same start menu (F5) or using a Profiling Launch Profile.