phpnomad/encryption

Encryption contracts for PHPNomad — bring your own cipher via an integration package. This package holds only the strategy and key-provider interfaces, the immutable encrypted-value model, the key providers, and the exception types. It makes no assumption about how you store or transport an encrypted value — no serialization format, no column shape. It has no cipher dependency (no ext-sodium, no framework, no ORM) — just PHP.

The default cipher lives in a separate integration: phpnomad/sodium-integration (libsodium XChaCha20-Poly1305 AEAD).

• Contract-first. EncryptionStrategy and KeyProvider are the seams; swap ciphers or key sources without touching call sites.
• Context binding. The contract requires ciphertext to be bound to a caller context (associated data), so a value copied elsewhere won't decrypt.
• Key rotation built in. Keys are versioned; encrypt with the current version, decrypt against whatever version sealed the data.
• Storage-agnostic. EncryptedValue is pure data — ciphertext, nonce, key version, and an opaque cipher tag. How you persist it is entirely yours.

Requirements

• PHP >= 8.2
• A cipher implementation — e.g. phpnomad/sodium-integration.

Install

composer require phpnomad/encryption phpnomad/sodium-integration

phpnomad/encryption gives you the contracts; phpnomad/sodium-integration gives you the SodiumEncryptionStrategy to wire in.

Quickstart

use PHPNomad\Encryption\Providers\ArrayKeyProvider;
use PHPNomad\Encryption\Models\EncryptedValue;
use PHPNomad\Sodium\EncryptionIntegration\Strategies\SodiumEncryptionStrategy;

// A key ring holding one 32-byte key at version 1.
$keys = new ArrayKeyProvider([1 => sodium_crypto_aead_xchacha20poly1305_ietf_keygen()]);

// The cipher comes from the integration package; everything else is this one.
$encryption = new SodiumEncryptionStrategy($keys);

$sealed = $encryption->encrypt('sk-live-super-secret');

// Persist it however your storage layer prefers — the value is pure data, so the
// shape is yours. For example, spread across columns (base64 for text columns):
$row = [
    'ciphertext'  => base64_encode($sealed->getCiphertext()),
    'nonce'       => base64_encode($sealed->getNonce()),
    'key_version' => $sealed->getKeyVersion(),
    'cipher'      => $sealed->getCipher(),
];

// Later — rebuild the value from your stored fields and decrypt:
$restored = new EncryptedValue(
    base64_decode($row['ciphertext']),
    base64_decode($row['nonce']),
    (int) $row['key_version'],
    $row['cipher'],
);

$plaintext = $encryption->decrypt($restored);
// => "sk-live-super-secret"

Generate a base64 key for your environment:

php -r 'echo base64_encode(sodium_crypto_aead_xchacha20poly1305_ietf_keygen()), "\n";'

Where keys come from — an env var, a file, a KMS — is your application's concern: implement Interfaces\KeyProvider (two methods) however you load them. ArrayKeyProvider is the in-memory primitive when you already hold the raw keys.

Associated data (AEAD context)

The second argument to encrypt()/decrypt() is associated data: authenticated but not encrypted. Use it to bind a ciphertext to where it lives. The same context must be supplied to decrypt.

$sealed = $encryption->encrypt($token, "tenant:42:column:access_token");

$encryption->decrypt($sealed, "tenant:42:column:access_token"); // ok
$encryption->decrypt($sealed, "tenant:99:column:access_token"); // throws DecryptionFailedException

This turns an encrypted-value swap between rows or columns from a silent success into a hard failure. If you encrypt several fields on one record, give each its own context (e.g. "record:{id}:{field}") so ciphertexts can't be swapped between columns.

Key rotation

Keys are addressed by version. Keep every version still referenced by stored ciphertext; point the ring's current version at the newest key.

// v1 was current when old values were sealed. Now add v2 and make it current.
$keys = new ArrayKeyProvider([
    1 => $oldKey,   // retained so old ciphertext still decrypts
    2 => $newKey,
], currentVersion: 2);

$encryption = new SodiumEncryptionStrategy($keys);

$encryption->encrypt('x');        // sealed under v2
$encryption->decrypt($oldValue);  // still decrypts against v1

To fully migrate, decrypt each stored value and re-encrypt it (the new EncryptedValue carries keyVersion = 2), then retire the old key once nothing references it. Multiple keys can also live behind separate providers via KeyRing (one KeyProvider per version).

Writing a cipher integration

Implement Interfaces\EncryptionStrategy and return an EncryptedValue, stamping your own opaque cipher discriminator so decrypt-time can recognize it:

use PHPNomad\Encryption\Interfaces\EncryptionStrategy;
use PHPNomad\Encryption\Models\EncryptedValue;

final class MyCipherStrategy implements EncryptionStrategy
{
    public const CIPHER = 'my-cipher-v1';

    public function encrypt(string $plaintext, string $context = ''): EncryptedValue { /* ...return new EncryptedValue($ct, $nonce, $version, self::CIPHER) */ }
    public function decrypt(EncryptedValue $value, string $context = ''): string { /* ... */ }
}

The contract requires that decryption fail (throw DecryptionFailedException) on a wrong key, a mismatched $context, or tampered bytes, and that it decrypt against the key version recorded on the value. The cipher discriminator is owned by the strategy, not this package — the contract names no ciphers. See phpnomad/sodium-integration for the reference implementation.

API at a glance

Type	Role
Interfaces\EncryptionStrategy	encrypt(string, context): EncryptedValue / decrypt(EncryptedValue, context): string
Interfaces\KeyProvider	getKey(version): string / currentVersion(): int
Models\EncryptedValue	immutable data: ciphertext + nonce + keyVersion + opaque cipher tag; getters only
Providers\ArrayKeyProvider	in-memory versioned key ring
Providers\KeyRing	compose per-version providers
Exceptions\*	EncryptionException, DecryptionFailedException, KeyNotFoundException
cipher strategy	provided by an integration, e.g. phpnomad/sodium-integration

Testing

composer install
composer test

The contract suite has no cipher dependency — it exercises the strategy contract against a small in-package reversible fake. The real libsodium cipher is tested in phpnomad/sodium-integration.

License

MIT © Novatorius / Alex Standiford