SCUC 2025 - Unforkettable UnConference

This year, I had the pleasure of attending the Shopware Community Unconference (#SCUC2025) in Cologne. As in previous years, the event was absolutely fantastic.
First things first: if you've ever worked with Shopware — or are simply curious to learn more about it, the community, and the people behind it — I highly recommend attending this event. It’s an amazing opportunity to connect, learn, and be inspired.

Saturday (Day 1)

Saturday Schedule - SCUC 2025

Since I wasn’t able to attend the pre-party on Friday, let’s jump straight into Saturday and the main event.
The schedule for the day looked like this:

As you can see, there were always three sessions happening in parallel, meaning you constantly faced the agony of choice. The first session I attended was the AI Discussion.

AI Discussion

The AI Discussion was set up as an open and interactive conversation rather than a traditional presentation, which made it even more interesting. Everyone was encouraged to share their experiences, opinions, and concerns about the growing role of AI in our industry.

Some key takeaways from the session were:

• AI is currently being used for almost everything — from code generation to content creation.

• Many clients today are less concerned with quality or code standards. Instead, they often prefer the cheaper and faster solution, which in many cases can be delivered with the help of AI.

• Most clients do not have a deep understanding of what it takes to create high-quality code or manage a proper development process, which makes it even harder for them to recognize the value behind a "better" solution

• While AI can significantly speed up development processes, it can also introduce more issues and bugs if not used carefully.

• A critical point raised was the potential long-term downside: relying too heavily on AI could make us, as humans, lose essential skills, forget even simple things, and ultimately hinder true progress.

And in the spirit of transparency: yes, this was written with the help of AI — based on my notes and personal impressions from the session.

Shopware 6.7 Major Update

The next session I attended focused on the upcoming Shopware 6.7 Major Update.
There are already detailed documents and blog posts available about the release candidate — for example, the upgrade guide on GitHub and Shopware’s official blog post.

The main points discussed during this session were:

• Accessibility is becoming even more important, especially in alignment with the European Accessibility Act (EAA). Tools like Eye-Able, Lighthouse, and axe were mentioned as helpful resources to improve web accessibility.

• It’s crucial to follow web accessibility guidelines not just for compliance but also for better user experiences.

• How to use the Shopware CLI to make administration compatible with both 6.6 and 6.7 versions.

• Meteor components will replace some existing components starting with version 6.8.

• The new Shopware Community Hub is already built using the Meteor framework.

Lunch & Group Photo

Of course, no Shopware Unconference would be complete without the traditional lunch break and the big group photo. Lunch was relaxed and a perfect chance to chat with old friends, meet new faces, and continue the discussions from the sessions in a more casual setting.

How Do You Tackle Web Accessibility?

Another session I attended focused specifically on web accessibility.
In my opinion, the discussion was quite similar to the points raised during the Shopware 6.7 Major Update talk — but it was still very valuable to hear different opinions and approaches regarding the upcoming web accessibility regulations.

Extension Verifier

The last session I attended focused on the Extension Verifier, a tool designed to format, check, and refactor your apps, plugins, or even entire projects. It runs checks using several powerful tools, including:

• PHPStan

• Rector

• PHP-CS-Fixer

• ESLint

It was impressive to see how much this tool can accomplish in such a short period. It’s definitely a huge time-saver, and I’m certain I’ll be using it in the future.

You can find the documentation here: Shopware Extension Verifier Documentation

After Show Party

After a short break, the after-show party took place at a different location — and yes, there was food! The food was excellent. The after-party is always a fantastic opportunity to meet new people, connect, and have great conversations. I had a lot of fun and spoke to many new faces, which was a true pleasure. It was the perfect end to an already amazing day.

Sunday (Day 2)

Sunday Schedule - SCUC 2025

Vibe Coding a plugin together

The first session of the day was all about vibe coding a plugin together. We started by exploring different AI tools that could assist in the process, including:

• Cursor

• Windsurf

• Junie

Then, we simply watched as the AI built a complete plugin. It was a plugin that should add a button to cancel an order. Starting with just a prompt. The AI handled almost all the errors by simple throwing the error message to it, throughout the process . In the end, the plugin worked and it was pretty amazing to see how the AI could manage the entire task on its own.

Frosh Jetpack

Next, we had a session about Frosh Jetpack, a tool designed to speed up rapid extension development for Shopware, similar to Android's Jetpack. The idea behind it is really promising, as it aims to simplify and streamline the extension development process for Shopware extensions. I think it's a great concept, and I’m excited to start using it.

Meditation meets Documentation

This session began with something a bit unexpected — a short meditation. The main focus was on technical writing, documentation, and content creation, but many of the ideas shared also resonated strongly with software development in general.

A few key takeaways for me were:

• It’s important to take regular mental breaks — even short meditations can help reset your focus.

• Scheduling daily focus sessions can greatly improve productivity.

• Techniques like the Pomodoro method can help you stay sharp and avoid burnout.

There are tools and apps for literally everything — including focus and mindfulness. I also wanted to share a few of my personal favorites that help me stay focused throughout the day:

• Forest App – Encourages you to stay off your phone by growing virtual trees. You can even do focus sessions with friends, though that feature is part of the paid version.

• Momentum (Browser Extension) – Replaces your new tab with a calming dashboard, inspiring quotes, and daily focus goals.

• clearSpace – Promotes mindful phone use and helps reduce unnecessary screen time.

While the Forest App is unfortunately only available as a paid app, I’m pretty sure there are already some great free alternatives out there that work just as well.

How to write a plugin that is easy to update

The final session I attended focused on best practices for writing plugins that are easy to maintain and update. We discussed helpful strategies and common pitfalls to avoid when building for the long term.

My favorite quote from the session was:
“Do you know why it’s called an issue and not an issMe?”
A great reminder to stay objective and open to improvement when maintaining code.

Thank You & Conclusion

As always, it was a fantastic event. I had a great time, met a whole bunch of new people, and it was truly inspiring to see the Shopware community come together once again. A big thank you to everyone involved in organizing this — it was an amazing experience from start to finish. I can only recommend the Shopware Community Unconference to anyone interested in the ecosystem, and I’m already looking forward to being there again next year! It was unforkettable!