Developing with Prism

Prism is a Laravel package for integrating Large Language Models (LLMs) into applications with a fluent, expressive and eloquent API.

Basic Usage Examples

Text Generation

php

use Prism\Prism\Facades\Prism;
use Prism\Prism\Enums\Provider;

$response = Prism::text()
    ->using(Provider::Anthropic, 'claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022')
    ->withSystemPrompt('You are an expert mathematician.')
    ->withPrompt('Explain the Pythagorean theorem.')
    ->asText();

echo $response->text;

Structured Output

php

use Prism\Prism\Facades\Prism;
use Prism\Prism\Enums\Provider;
use Prism\Prism\Schema\ObjectSchema;
use Prism\Prism\Schema\StringSchema;

$schema = new ObjectSchema(
    name: 'movie_review',
    description: 'A structured movie review',
    properties: [
        new StringSchema('title', 'The movie title'),
        new StringSchema('rating', 'Rating out of 5 stars'),
        new StringSchema('summary', 'Brief review summary')
    ],
    requiredFields: ['title', 'rating', 'summary']
);

$response = Prism::structured()
    ->using(Provider::OpenAI, 'gpt-4o')
    ->withSchema($schema)
    ->withPrompt('Review the movie Inception')
    ->asStructured();

$review = $response->structured;
echo $review['title'];

Streaming (Server-Sent Events)

php

Route::get('/chat', function () {
    return Prism::text()
        ->using('anthropic', 'claude-3-7-sonnet')
        ->withPrompt(request('message'))
        ->asEventStreamResponse();
});

Tools / Function Calling

php

use Prism\Prism\Facades\Prism;
use Prism\Prism\Tool;

$weatherTool = Tool::as('get_weather')
    ->for('Get current weather for a location')
    ->withStringParameter('location', 'The city and state')
    ->using(fn (string $location): string =>
        "Weather in {$location}: 72F, sunny"
    );

$response = Prism::text()
    ->using('anthropic', 'claude-3-5-sonnet-latest')
    ->withTools([$weatherTool])
    ->withMaxSteps(3)
    ->withPrompt('What is the weather in San Francisco?')
    ->asText();

Multi-Modal (Images/Documents)

php

use Prism\Prism\ValueObjects\Media\Image;
use Prism\Prism\ValueObjects\Media\Document;

$response = Prism::text()
    ->using(Provider::Anthropic, 'claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022')
    ->withPrompt(
        'What objects do you see in this image?',
        [Image::fromLocalPath('/path/to/image.jpg')]
    )
    ->asText();

Prism Documentation

IMPORTANT: Always search the docs before implementing Prism features.

How to Search

•

Read a specific doc file directly:

code

read vendor/prism-php/prism/docs/core-concepts/text-generation.md
read vendor/prism-php/prism/docs/providers/openai.md

•

Search for a topic across docs:

code

grep "streaming" vendor/prism-php/prism/docs/
grep "withProviderOptions" vendor/prism-php/prism/docs/providers/

•

Find all doc files:

code

glob "vendor/prism-php/prism/docs/**/*.md"

Documentation Paths

Need	Read This File
Text generation	`docs/core-concepts/text-generation.md`
Streaming responses	`docs/core-concepts/streaming-output.md`
Tools / function calling	`docs/core-concepts/tools-function-calling.md`
Structured JSON output	`docs/core-concepts/structured-output.md`
Embeddings	`docs/core-concepts/embeddings.md`
Image generation	`docs/core-concepts/image-generation.md`
Audio (TTS/STT)	`docs/core-concepts/audio.md`
Schema definitions	`docs/core-concepts/schemas.md`
Testing	`docs/core-concepts/testing.md`
Image input	`docs/input-modalities/images.md`
Document input (PDF)	`docs/input-modalities/documents.md`
OpenAI options	`docs/providers/openai.md`
Anthropic options	`docs/providers/anthropic.md`
Other providers	`docs/providers/{provider}.md`
Error handling	`docs/advanced/error-handling.md`

Source Code Reference

For implementation details:

code

glob "src/**/*.php"
grep "class Tool" src/

Key Patterns

•Use Prism\Prism\Facades\Prism facade or prism() helper
•Core methods: Prism::text(), Prism::structured(), Prism::embeddings(), Prism::image(), Prism::audio()
•Chain ->using(Provider::Name, 'model-id') to specify provider/model
•Finalize with: ->asText(), ->asStructured(), ->asStream(), ->asEventStreamResponse(), ->asDataStreamResponse()

Provider-Specific Options

Use ->withProviderOptions([...]) to pass provider-specific features:

php

$response = Prism::text()
    ->using('anthropic', 'claude-3-7-sonnet-latest')
    ->withPrompt('Your prompt')
    ->withProviderOptions(['thinking' => ['enabled' => true]])  // Anthropic-specific
    ->asText();

Always search the provider docs first to find available options for each provider:

•docs/providers/openai.md - strict mode, reasoning, image generation options
•docs/providers/anthropic.md - thinking mode, prompt caching, citations
•docs/providers/gemini.md, docs/providers/mistral.md, etc.

Common Pitfalls

Wrong Package Name

NEVER use the old package: echolabsdev/prism is deprecated.

ALWAYS use: prism-php/prism

bash


# Correct

composer require prism-php/prism

# Wrong - do not use

composer require echolabsdev/prism

Wrong Namespace

ALWAYS use the Prism\Prism namespace for all Prism classes:

php

// Correct
use Prism\Prism\Facades\Prism;
use Prism\Prism\Enums\Provider;
use Prism\Prism\Tool;
use Prism\Prism\Schema\ObjectSchema;

// Wrong - these namespaces do not exist
use EchoLabs\Prism\Prism;
use Prism\Facades\Prism;

Decision Workflow

When working with Prism, follow this pattern:

•
Determine what you need:

Text generation? → Use Prism::text() Structured JSON output? → Use Prism::structured() Embeddings? → Use Prism::embeddings() Image generation? → Use Prism::image() Audio (TTS/STT)? → Use Prism::audio()
•
Always read the relevant docs first before implementing.

Related Packages

•Prism Relay - MCP tools integration for Prism. See references/relay.md
•Prism Bedrock - AWS Bedrock provider: https://github.com/prism-php/bedrock