PHP on Previewops

Previewops builds whatever your Dockerfile produces and runs it as a container, so PHP needs no special support. What it does need is what every stack needs: read the injected PORT and listen on 0.0.0.0.
Read the port getenv("PORT")
Bind all interfaces php -S 0.0.0.0:$PORT

Dockerfile

FROM php:8.3-cli
WORKDIR /app
COPY . .
ENV PORT=8080
CMD ["sh", "-c", "php -S 0.0.0.0:$PORT -t public"]

ENV PORT=8080 is only a default. Previewops overrides it at deploy time, so the app must read the value rather than assume it.

Application code

A typical setup with the built-in server (previews) or PHP-FPM (production):

<?php
// public/index.php
$port = getenv('PORT') ?: '8080';

http_response_code(200);
echo 'ok';

PHP-specific pitfalls

Configuration

If your Dockerfile is not at the repository root, point at it from .previewops.yaml:

provider: cloud-run
dockerfile: ./docker/Dockerfile
port: 8080
ttl_hours: 24

See configuration.md for every available option.

Do not gate startup behind a migration

Language-agnostic, and the hardest failure here to diagnose:

# Avoid this
CMD ["sh", "-c", "run-migrations && start-server"]

If the migration cannot reach the database — a paused instance, an expired connection string, a cold-start timeout — it never exits, the server never starts, and the port never opens. The deploy itself already succeeded, so the preview shows as Live while nothing answers. Run migrations as a separate, visible step instead.