Repositories Introduction

Repository PHP

Read Aggregate Introduction first for more details about Aggregates.

The Problem

Every Command Handler does the same three lines: findById, do something, save. After ten handlers, that's thirty lines of identical glue. And the moment your aggregate becomes a Doctrine entity (or an Eloquent model), persistence concerns start leaking into the domain — fields exist to please the ORM, tests need a real database, and migrating to a different storage means rewriting every aggregate.

How Ecotone Solves It

A Repository is the seam between your domain (which only knows aggregates) and your storage (Doctrine, Eloquent, Document Store, Event Store). Ecotone provides built-in repositories for each — pick one, point Ecotone at it, and your aggregates stay free of @ORM\Entity and extends Model. The fetch/save boilerplate disappears entirely; Ecotone wraps every command in load → call → save automatically.

Typical Aggregate Flow

Repositories retrieve and save the aggregate to persistent storage. The typical flow for calling an aggregate method looks like:

class AssignWorkerHandler
{
    private TicketRepository $ticketRepository;

    #[CommandHandler]
    public function handle(AssignWorkerCommand $command) : void
    {
       // fetch the aggregate from repository
       $ticket = $this->ticketRepository->findBy($command->getTicketId());
       // call action method
       $ticket->assignWorker($command);
       // store the aggregate in repository
       $this->ticketRepository->save($ticket);    
    }
}

$this->commandBus->send(
   new AssignWorkerCommand(
      $ticketId, $workerId,            
   )
);

By setting up Repository we provide Ecotone with functionality to fetch and store the Aggregate , so we don't need to write the above orchestration code anymore.

Ecotone's Aggregate Flow

If our class is defined as Aggregate, Ecotone will use Repository in order fetch and store it, whenever the Command is sent via Command Bus.

#[Aggregate]
class Ticket
{
    #[Identifier]
    private string $ticketId;

    #[CommandHandler]
    public function assignWorker(AssignWorkerCommand $command)
    {
       // do something with assignation
    }
}

Now when we will send the Command, Ecotone will use ticketId from the Command to fetch related Ticket Aggregate, and will called assignWorker passing the Command. After this is completed it will use the repository to store changed Aggregate instance.

Therefore from high level nothing changes:

$this->commandBus->send(
   new AssignWorkerCommand(
      $ticketId, $workerId,            
   )
);

This way we don't need to write orchestration level code ourselves.