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BambooHR/bhr-api-php
PHP wrapper for the BambooHR API
Official PHP SDK for the BambooHR API, generated via OpenAPI Generator and wrapped with a hand-crafted fluent builder layer. Targets PHP 8.1+ and covers essentially the full BambooHR API surface: employees, time-off, time tracking, ATS, training, goals, webhooks, and more. Useful for any PHP shop that needs to integrate with BambooHR without writing HTTP plumbing from scratch.
- The fluent ApiClient builder is a genuine improvement over raw OpenAPI-generated code — OAuth with automatic token refresh via Guzzle middleware, configurable retries, and a callback for persisting new tokens are all handled cleanly.
- Typed exception hierarchy (RateLimitExceededException, ResourceNotFoundException, etc.) means you can catch specific HTTP error classes instead of parsing status codes from a generic ApiException.
- SecureLogger automatically redacts Authorization headers and tokens before writing to logs, which matters for any code touching employee data.
- Documentation is thorough: per-API markdown files, a migration guide, common use case examples, and AUTHENTICATION.md covering both API key and OAuth flows.
- The whole thing is OpenAPI-generated and returns arrays instead of typed objects — the README even has a warning block about it. You get zero IDE autocomplete on response data, and typos in array key names silently return null instead of failing at compile time.
- The fluent builder returns $this on most methods but calls build() at the end returning a different type — if you accidentally call withLogging() after build() on the already-built client (as shown in the README example), it silently does nothing or breaks, which is a confusing API surface.
- No pagination helpers. Many endpoints return cursor-paginated or offset-paginated results, but there's no iterator or page-fetching abstraction — callers have to handle next-page logic themselves using raw metadata fields.
- Only 34 stars for an official SDK from a company with thousands of customers suggests most integrators are either using the old community wrappers or rolling their own. The repo was basically dormant until recently, so stability of the fluent layer in production is largely unproven.