Installation

• Meet Laravel
  • Why Laravel?
• Creating a Laravel Application
  • Getting Started Using AI
  • Installing PHP and the Laravel Installer
  • Creating an Application
• Initial Configuration
  • Environment Based Configuration
  • Databases and Migrations
  • Directory Configuration
• Installation Using Herd
  • Herd on macOS
  • Herd on Windows
• IDE Support
• Laravel and AI
  • Installing Laravel Boost
• Next Steps
  • Laravel the Full Stack Framework
  • Laravel the API Backend

Meet Laravel

Laravel is a web application framework with expressive, elegant syntax. A web framework provides a structure and starting point for creating your application, allowing you to focus on creating something amazing while we sweat the details.

Laravel strives to provide an amazing developer experience while providing powerful features such as thorough dependency injection, an expressive database abstraction layer, queues and scheduled jobs, unit and integration testing, and more.

Whether you are new to PHP web frameworks or have years of experience, Laravel is a framework that can grow with you. We'll help you take your first steps as a web developer or give you a boost as you take your expertise to the next level. We can't wait to see what you build.

Why Laravel?

There are a variety of tools and frameworks available to you when building a web application. However, we believe Laravel is the best choice for building modern, full-stack web applications.

A Progressive Framework

We like to call Laravel a "progressive" framework. By that, we mean that Laravel grows with you. If you're just taking your first steps into web development, Laravel's vast library of documentation, guides, and video tutorials will help you learn the ropes without becoming overwhelmed.

If you're a senior developer, Laravel gives you robust tools for dependency injection, unit testing, queues, real-time events, and more. Laravel is fine-tuned for building professional web applications and ready to handle enterprise workloads.

A Scalable Framework

Laravel is incredibly scalable. Thanks to the scaling-friendly nature of PHP and Laravel's built-in support for fast, distributed cache systems like Redis, horizontal scaling with Laravel is a breeze. In fact, Laravel applications have been easily scaled to handle hundreds of millions of requests per month.

Need extreme scaling? Platforms like Laravel Cloud allow you to run your Laravel application at nearly limitless scale.

An Agent Ready Framework

Laravel's opinionated conventions and well-defined structure make it an ideal framework for AI assisted development using tools like Cursor and Claude Code. When you ask an AI agent to add a controller, it knows exactly where to place it. When you need a new migration, the naming conventions and file locations are predictable. This consistency eliminates the guesswork that often trips up AI tools in more flexible frameworks.

Beyond file organization, Laravel's expressive syntax and comprehensive documentation give AI agents the context they need to generate accurate, idiomatic code. Features like Eloquent relationships, form requests, and middleware follow patterns that agents can reliably understand and replicate. The result is AI-generated code that looks like it was written by a seasoned Laravel developer, not stitched together from generic PHP snippets.

To learn more about why Laravel is the perfect choice for AI assisted development, check out our documentation on agentic development.

A Community Framework

Laravel combines the best packages in the PHP ecosystem to offer the most robust and developer friendly framework available. In addition, thousands of talented developers from around the world have contributed to the framework. Who knows, maybe you'll even become a Laravel contributor.

Creating a Laravel Application

Getting Started Using AI

If you are using an AI coding agent like Claude Code or OpenCode, you can start with a prompt that gives the agent a Laravel-specific playbook before it touches your project.

The prompt below tells the agent where to find Laravel's installation guidance, what to prioritize, and how to make sensible defaults when you haven't made a choice yet. Paste this into your agent to get started:

1I'm building a new Laravel application.
2
3Fetch and follow the instructions from https://laravel.com/for/agents. Treat the returned Markdown as the source of truth for how to install and set up Laravel in this session.

After the agent reads the instructions, it should guide you step by step and keep the setup aligned with Laravel's defaults.

Installing PHP and the Laravel Installer

Before creating your first Laravel application, make sure that your local machine has PHP, Composer, and the Laravel installer installed. In addition, you should install either Node and NPM or Bun so that you can compile your application's frontend assets.

If you don't have PHP and Composer installed on your local machine, the following commands will install PHP, Composer, and the Laravel installer on macOS, Windows, or Linux:

1/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://php.new/install/mac/8.4)"

1# Run as administrator...
2Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://php.new/install/windows/8.4'))

1/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://php.new/install/linux/8.4)"

After running one of the commands above, you should restart your terminal session. To update PHP, Composer, and the Laravel installer after installing them via php.new, you can re-run the command in your terminal.

If you already have PHP and Composer installed, you may install the Laravel installer via Composer:

1composer global require laravel/installer

Creating an Application

After you have installed PHP, Composer, and the Laravel installer, you're ready to create a new Laravel application. The Laravel installer will prompt you to select your preferred testing framework, database, and starter kit:

1laravel new example-app

Once the application has been created, you can start Laravel's local development server, queue worker, and Vite development server using the dev Composer script:

1cd example-app
2npm install && npm run build
3composer run dev

Once you have started the development server, your application will be accessible in your web browser at http://localhost:8000. Next, you're ready to start taking your next steps into the Laravel ecosystem. Of course, you may also want to configure a database.

Initial Configuration

All of the configuration files for the Laravel framework are stored in the config directory. Each option is documented, so feel free to look through the files and get familiar with the options available to you.

Laravel needs almost no additional configuration out of the box. You are free to get started developing! However, you may wish to review the config/app.php file and its documentation. It contains several options such as url and locale that you may wish to change according to your application.

Environment Based Configuration

Since many of Laravel's configuration option values may vary depending on whether your application is running on your local machine or on a production web server, many important configuration values are defined using the .env file that exists at the root of your application.

Your .env file should not be committed to your application's source control, since each developer / server using your application could require a different environment configuration. Furthermore, this would be a security risk in the event an intruder gains access to your source control repository, since any sensitive credentials would be exposed.

Databases and Migrations

Now that you have created your Laravel application, you probably want to store some data in a database. By default, your application's .env configuration file specifies that Laravel will be interacting with an SQLite database.

During the creation of the application, Laravel created a database/database.sqlite file for you, and ran the necessary migrations to create the application's database tables.

If you prefer to use another database driver such as MySQL or PostgreSQL, you can update your .env configuration file to use the appropriate database. For example, if you wish to use MySQL, update your .env configuration file's DB_* variables like so:

1DB_CONNECTION=mysql
2DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
3DB_PORT=3306
4DB_DATABASE=laravel
5DB_USERNAME=root
6DB_PASSWORD=

If you choose to use a database other than SQLite, you will need to create the database and run your application's database migrations:

1php artisan migrate

Directory Configuration

Laravel should always be served out of the root of the "web directory" configured for your web server. You should not attempt to serve a Laravel application out of a subdirectory of the "web directory". Attempting to do so could expose sensitive files present within your application.

Installation Using Herd

Laravel Herd is a blazing fast, native Laravel and PHP development environment for macOS and Windows. Herd includes everything you need to get started with Laravel development, including PHP and Nginx.

Once you install Herd, you're ready to start developing with Laravel. Herd includes command line tools for php, composer, laravel, expose, node, npm, and nvm.

Herd on macOS

If you develop on macOS, you can download the Herd installer from the Herd website. The installer automatically downloads the latest version of PHP and configures your Mac to always run Nginx in the background.

Herd for macOS uses dnsmasq to support "parked" directories. Any Laravel application in a parked directory will automatically be served by Herd. By default, Herd creates a parked directory at ~/Herd and you can access any Laravel application in this directory on the .test domain using its directory name.

After installing Herd, the fastest way to create a new Laravel application is using the Laravel CLI, which is bundled with Herd:

1cd ~/Herd
2laravel new my-app
3cd my-app
4herd open

Of course, you can always manage your parked directories and other PHP settings via Herd's UI, which can be opened from the Herd menu in your system tray.

You can learn more about Herd by checking out the Herd documentation.

Herd on Windows

You can download the Windows installer for Herd on the Herd website. After the installation finishes, you can start Herd to complete the onboarding process and access the Herd UI for the first time.

The Herd UI is accessible by left-clicking on Herd's system tray icon. A right-click opens the quick menu with access to all tools that you need on a daily basis.

During installation, Herd creates a "parked" directory in your home directory at %USERPROFILE%\Herd. Any Laravel application in a parked directory will automatically be served by Herd, and you can access any Laravel application in this directory on the .test domain using its directory name.

After installing Herd, the fastest way to create a new Laravel application is using the Laravel CLI, which is bundled with Herd. To get started, open Powershell and run the following commands:

1cd ~\Herd
2laravel new my-app
3cd my-app
4herd open

You can learn more about Herd by checking out the Herd documentation for Windows.

IDE Support

You are free to use any code editor you wish when developing Laravel applications. If you're looking for lightweight and extensible editors, VS Code or Cursor combined with the official Laravel VS Code Extension offers excellent Laravel support with features like syntax highlighting, snippets, artisan command integration, and smart autocompletion for Eloquent models, routes, middleware, assets, config, and Inertia.js.

For extensive and robust support of Laravel, take a look at PhpStorm, a JetBrains IDE. PhpStorm's built-in Laravel framework support includes Blade templates, smart autocompletion for Eloquent models, routes, views, translations, and components, along with powerful code generation and navigation across Laravel projects.

For those seeking a cloud-based development experience, Firebase Studio provides instant access to building with Laravel directly in your browser. With zero setup required, Firebase Studio makes it easy to start building Laravel applications from any device.

Laravel and AI

Laravel Boost is a powerful tool that bridges the gap between AI coding agents and Laravel applications. Boost provides AI agents with Laravel-specific context, tools, and guidelines so they can generate more accurate, version-specific code that follows Laravel conventions.

When you install Boost in your Laravel application, AI agents gain access to over 15 specialized tools including the ability to know which packages you are using, query your database, search the Laravel documentation, read browser logs, generate tests, and execute code via Tinker.

In addition, Boost gives AI agents access to over 17,000 pieces of vectorized Laravel ecosystem documentation, specific to your installed package versions. This means agents can provide guidance targeted to the exact versions your project uses.

Boost also includes Laravel-maintained AI guidelines that help agents to follow framework conventions, write appropriate tests, and avoid common pitfalls when generating Laravel code.

Installing Laravel Boost

Boost can be installed in Laravel 10, 11, 12, and 13 applications running PHP 8.1 or higher. To get started, install Boost as a development dependency:

1composer require laravel/boost --dev

Once installed, run the interactive installer:

1php artisan boost:install

The installer will auto-detect your IDE and AI agents, allowing you to opt into the features that make sense for your project. Boost respects existing project conventions and doesn't force opinionated style rules by default.

Adding Custom AI Guidelines

To augment Laravel Boost with your own custom AI guidelines, add .blade.php or .md files to your application's .ai/guidelines/* directory. These files will automatically be included with Laravel Boost's guidelines when you run boost:install.

Next Steps

Now that you have created your Laravel application, you may be wondering what to learn next. First, we strongly recommend becoming familiar with how Laravel works by reading the following documentation:

How you want to use Laravel will also dictate the next steps on your journey. There are a variety of ways to use Laravel, and we'll explore two primary use cases for the framework below.

Laravel the Full Stack Framework

Laravel may serve as a full stack framework. By "full stack" framework we mean that you are going to use Laravel to route requests to your application and render your frontend via Blade templates or a single-page application hybrid technology like Inertia. This is the most common way to use the Laravel framework, and, in our opinion, the most productive way to use Laravel.

If this is how you plan to use Laravel, you may want to check out our documentation on frontend development, routing, views, or the Eloquent ORM. In addition, you might be interested in learning about community packages like Livewire and Inertia. These packages allow you to use Laravel as a full-stack framework while enjoying many of the UI benefits provided by single-page JavaScript applications.

If you are using Laravel as a full stack framework, we also strongly encourage you to learn how to compile your application's CSS and JavaScript using Vite.

Laravel the API Backend

Laravel may also serve as an API backend to a JavaScript single-page application or mobile application. For example, you might use Laravel as an API backend for your Next.js application. In this context, you may use Laravel to provide authentication and data storage / retrieval for your application, while also taking advantage of Laravel's powerful services such as queues, emails, notifications, and more.

If this is how you plan to use Laravel, you may want to check out our documentation on routing, Laravel Sanctum, and the Eloquent ORM.