Automate Your Daily Tasks With PHP CLI

October 15, 2025

Command-line tools in PHP can do far more than basic file cleanup. We’ll build a PHP CLI tool that can:

Manage files and folders dynamically
Generate CSV/JSON reports
Interact with external APIs
Send emails with attachments
Schedule tasks via cron jobs
Include logging and color-coded CLI output

Setting Up the Project

Create a folder structure:

php-cli-tool/
├── cli-tool.php
├── logs/
├── reports/
└── vendor/   (optional, for libraries)

Create the main script cli-tool.php:

#!/usr/bin/env php
<?php
ini_set('display_errors', 1);
error_reporting(E_ALL);

$command = $argv[1] ?? null;

switch($command) {
    case 'clean-logs':
        require 'tasks/cleanLogs.php';
        cleanOldLogs();
        break;
    case 'generate-report':
        require 'tasks/generateReport.php';
        generateReport();
        break;
    case 'fetch-api-data':
        require 'tasks/fetchApi.php';
        fetchApiData();
        break;
    case 'send-email':
        require 'tasks/sendEmail.php';
        sendEmailTask();
        break;
    default:
        echo "Usage: php cli-tool.php [clean-logs|generate-report|fetch-api-data|send-email]\n";
}

Advanced File Management

Automatically archive files older than 30 days and compress them:

function archiveOldFiles($directory = 'logs', $archiveDir = 'archive') {
    if(!is_dir($archiveDir)) mkdir($archiveDir, 0777, true);
    
    $files = glob("$directory/*.log");
    $now = time();

    foreach ($files as $file) {
        if ($now - filemtime($file) > 30 * 24 * 60 * 60) {
            $zip = new ZipArchive();
            $zipFile = "$archiveDir/" . basename($file, '.log') . ".zip";
            if ($zip->open($zipFile, ZipArchive::CREATE) === TRUE) {
                $zip->addFile($file, basename($file));
                $zip->close();
                unlink($file);
                echo "Archived and removed $file\n";
            }
        }
    }
}

Generating CSV and JSON Reports

Create detailed reports from your log files:

function generateReport($directory = 'logs', $outputDir = 'reports') {
    if(!is_dir($outputDir)) mkdir($outputDir, 0777, true);

    $logs = glob("$directory/*.log");
    $reportData = [];

    foreach($logs as $log) {
        $lines = file($log, FILE_IGNORE_NEW_LINES);
        $reportData[] = [
            'file' => basename($log),
            'lines' => count($lines)
        ];
    }

    // Save CSV
    $csvFile = "$outputDir/report.csv";
    $fp = fopen($csvFile, 'w');
    fputcsv($fp, ['File', 'Lines']);
    foreach($reportData as $row) fputcsv($fp, $row);
    fclose($fp);

    // Save JSON
    file_put_contents("$outputDir/report.json", json_encode($reportData, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT));

    echo "Reports generated in $outputDir\n";
}

Fetching Data from APIs

Pull JSON data from an API and save it locally:

function fetchApiData() {
    $url = "https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts";
    $data = file_get_contents($url);
    if($data === false) {
        echo "Failed to fetch API data.\n";
        return;
    }

    $decoded = json_decode($data, true);
    file_put_contents('reports/api-data.json', json_encode($decoded, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT));
    echo "API data saved to reports/api-data.json\n";
}

5. Sending Emails with Attachments

Use PHP mail() or PHPMailer for more advanced emailing:

function sendEmailTask() {
    $to = '[email protected]';
    $subject = 'Automated Report';
    $message = 'Your automated report is attached.';
    $headers = "From: [email protected]\r\n";

    // Attach report file
    $file = 'reports/report.csv';
    if(file_exists($file)) {
        // For simplicity, just send a plain email mentioning the file
        $message .= "\nReport attached: $file";
    }

    if(mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers)) {
        echo "Email sent to $to\n";
    } else {
        echo "Failed to send email\n";
    }
}

Scheduling Tasks

Use cron jobs to automate execution:

# Run clean logs every day at midnight
0 0 * * * /usr/bin/php /path/to/cli-tool.php clean-logs
# Generate report every day at 1am
0 1 * * * /usr/bin/php /path/to/cli-tool.php generate-report

Color-Coded CLI Output

Highlight success and errors:

function colorText($text, $colorCode) {
    return "\033[".$colorCode."m".$text."\033[0m";
}

echo colorText("SUCCESS: Task completed!\n", 32); // Green
echo colorText("ERROR: Something went wrong!\n", 31); // Red

You can expand it further with:

Multi-threaded execution using pcntl_fork()
Database integration
Slack/Telegram notifications