@link

The @link tag points from the described element to an external web resource: a specification, an RFC, a blog post explaining a tricky algorithm, or a page in an external vendor's documentation. Unlike @see, which can reference either a symbol in the codebase or a URI, @link only ever points outside the codebase — its argument must be a well-formed URI, never a class, method, or constant reference.

"@link" <URI> [ <Description> ]

Parsing a @link tag produces a LinkTag instance:

final class LinkTag extends ReferenceTag
{
    public function __construct(
        string $name,
        UriReference $uri,
        ?DescriptionInterface $description = null,
    ) {
        parent::__construct(
            $name,
            $uri,
            $description,
        );
    }
}

It exposes $reference — the parsed UriReference — inherited from ReferenceTag, not $uri: that name is only the constructor parameter used before forwarding the value to the parent class.

@link may also be used inline, nested inside a description as a {@link ...} sequence, rather than only on its own line:

/**
 * Retries follow the backoff described in
 * {@link https://example.com/docs/retries}.
 */

Defined by the PSR-19 draft and phpDocumentor's own page; the underlying URI syntax follows RFC 3986.

05 July 2026