01-getting-started.md

1. Getting Started
2. Obtaining OAuth Tokens For Patrons
3. Patreon Integration Examples
4. Method Documentation
5. Library Architecture

Getting Started

You will need a valid Patreon Access Token to use the Patreon PHP client. Patreon provides two types of access token, Creator Access Token and OAuth Access Token.

Creator Access Token

A Creator Access Token grants API Access to the Creator's account details and their Campaign which includes Pledges. This token is generated when the Patreon Creator creates an API Client and does not require implementing an OAuth flow.

1. Visit the Patreon Clients & API Keys page and click "Create Client"
2. Fill out the form and submit
3. Copy the Creator's Access Token

OAuth Access Token

An OAuth Access Token grants API access to the User's account details, and their relationship to the Campaign of the Client's Creator. This token is obtained through the standard OAuth code grant flow.

1. Visit the Patreon Clients & API Keys page and click "Create Client"
2. Fill out the form and submit
3. Copy the Client ID and Client Secret
4. Configure your OAuth client

Using Patreon PHP

You will first need to install an HTTPlug Compatible Client such as php-http/guzzle6-adapter alongside the library.

composer require squid/patreon php-http/guzzle6-adapter

The Client is instantiated with an Access Token (either type!) and from there you have access to the Resources. Each Resource exposes methods which you call to obtain data from the API.

require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';

$patreon = new Patreon('access_token');
$campaign = $patreon->campaigns()->getMyCampaign();

echo "Hello, {$campaign->creator->full_name}.\n";
echo "You're creating {$campaign->creation_name} for {$campaign->patron_count} patrons.\n";

Resources and Methods

Resources are available as methods on the Client. Each Resource exposes methods that return either an individual Entity or a Collection of Entities.

Me

The me() Resource represents the current_user endpoint. This Resource provides a get() method which will return a User Entity. Additionally, if the User is a Patron of the Client Creator's Campaign then their Pledge to that Campaign will be included.

$patreon = new Patreon('access_token');
$user = $patreon->me()->get();

echo "Hello, {$user->full_name}.\n";

if ($user->pledge->isPledgeActive()) {
    echo "You pledge {$user->pledge->amount_cents} cents per {$user->pledge->campaign->pay_per_name}.\n";
    echo "Your reward is {$user->pledge->reward->title}\n";
}

You would use me() to:

• Retrieve data about the user who logged in through your OAuth flow
• Determine if the user should have access to your website

Campaigns

The campaigns() Resource represents the campaigns endpoint. This Resource provides getMyCampaign(), getMyCampaignWithPledges(), getCampaign(int $id) and getCampaignWithPledges(int $id), all of which return a Campaign Entity. Pledges, when requested, are included as a Collection on the pledges property.

$patreon = new Patreon('access_token');
$campaign = $patreon->campaigns()->getMyCampaignWithPledges();

echo "Hello, {$campaign->creator->full_name}. You have {$campaign->patron_count} patrons.\n";

$campaign->pledges->each(function ($pledge) {
    echo "{$pledge->patron->full_name} pledge's {$pledge->amount_cents} cents per {$pledge->campaign->pay_per_name}.\n";
    echo "Their reward is {$pledge->reward->title}\n";
});

✨ Patreon PHP handles pagination behind the scenes, a single call to a ...withPledges method will retrieve all Pledges for the campaign, whether there's 1 pledge or 10,000.

⚠️ Due to the potential for a campaign to have thousands of pledges, you should avoid retrieving pledges in response to an HTTP request, instead use a background process to prevent timing out.

🔐 Patreon must grant your client permission to access other User's Campaigns, you can only access the Campaign of the Client's Creator by default. You will probably not need the ...ById methods.

You would use campaigns() to:

• Retrieve data about your Creator's Campaign
• Access all of the Pledges to your Creator's Campaign

Pledges

The pledges() Resource represents the campaigns/{id}/pledges endpoint. This Resource provides getCampaignPledges(int $id) and getPageOfCampaignPledges(...) which both return a Collection of Pledges.

$patreon = new Patreon('access_token');
$pledges = $patreon->pledges()->getCampaignPledges($id);

$pledges->each(function ($pledge) {
    echo "{$pledge->patron->full_name} pledge's {$pledge->amount_cents} cents per {$pledge->campaign->pay_per_name}.\n";
    echo "Their reward is {$pledge->reward->title}\n";
});

Should you need to access a single page of Pledges directly, you can make use of the getPageOfCampaignPledges method. Pagination is cursor-based, with sorting by created, -created, updated and -updated. You can learn more about pagination in the Platform Documentation — "Pagination and sorting".

$patreon = new Patreon('access_token');

$pledges = $patreon->pledges()->getPageOfCampaignPledges(
    1,                          // id
    10,                         // count
    ['updated'],                // sort
    '2017-12-01T16:33:48+00:00' // cursor
);

You would use pledges() to:

• Access all of the Pledges to your Creator's Campaign as a Collection without Campaign data.

Webhook

The webhook() Resource handles inbound webhooks from Patreon. This Resource provides accept($body, $secret, $signature) which verifies the signature and then returns a Collection of Entities received from Patreon, and verifySignature(...) verifies the signature in the request is valid.

$patreon = new Patreon('access_token');

$pledges = $patreon->webhook()->accept(
    file_get_contents('php://input'),    // Request body
    $secret,                             // Webhook secret
    $_SERVER['HTTP_X_PATREON_SIGNATURE'] // Request signature
);

if ($_SERVER['HTTP_X_PATREON_EVENT'] === 'pledges:delete') {
    $pledges->each(function ($pledge) {
        User::where('email', $pledge->patron->email)->delete();
    });
}

You can learn more about Patreon Webhooks in the Platform Documentation — "Webhooks".

Next Steps

Hopefully you're now familiar with the way that the library works and the possibilities available, check out some examples to see how you could achieve common tasks.