Using chef roles...

development.rb

name "development"
description "The development environment"

# Using a role because chef-solo doesn't support environments.

override_attributes "app_environment" => "development",

override_attributes "mysql" => {
  :allow_remote_root    => true,
  :server_root_password => "",
  :bind_address         => '0.0.0.0'
}

run_list( *%w{
  recipe[fakemail]
})

## if it's a web server, add:

# recipe[php::module_xdebug]
# recipe[php::behat]
# recipe[php::phpunit]

web-server.rb

run_list( *%w{
  recipe[apache2]
  recipe[php]
  recipe[apache2::mod_php5]
  recipe[php::module_curl]
  recipe[php::module_mysql]
  recipe[php::xmlrpc]
})

## if app_environment=development, add:

# recipe[php::module_xdebug]
# recipe[php::behat]
# recipe[php::phpunit]