@author

The @author tag records who wrote or maintains the element it decorates. It is purely informational — nothing in the type system reads it — but it gives readers (and tooling that generates contributor listings or contact information) a place to find out who to ask about a class, method, or function.

"@author" <AuthorName> [ "<" <Email> ">" ] [ <Description> ]

Parsing an @author tag produces an AuthorTag instance exposing:

$author — the name as written.
$email — the address inside the angle brackets, or null when none was given.

final class AuthorTag extends Tag
{
    public function __construct(
        string $name,
        public readonly string $author,
        public readonly ?string $email = null,
        ?DescriptionInterface $description = null,
    ) {
        parent::__construct($name, $description);
    }
}

Multiple @author tags may appear on the same element when several people share responsibility for it; each one is parsed independently.

Defined by the PSR-19 draft PHPDoc Tags proposal and phpDocumentor's tag reference.

05 July 2026