Laravel — The PHP Framework for Web Artisans

What it is

Laravel is a PHP web framework with an expressive, elegant syntax. It provides routing, Eloquent ORM for database operations, Blade template engine, queue management, event broadcasting, task scheduling, and authentication scaffolding. The ecosystem includes Forge (server management), Vapor (serverless deployment), Nova (admin panel), Livewire (reactive components), and Jetstream (starter kit).

Laravel targets PHP developers building web applications, APIs, and backend services. It is the most popular PHP framework by adoption, with a large community, extensive documentation, and a mature ecosystem of first-party and community packages.

How it saves time or tokens

Laravel's artisan CLI generates models, controllers, migrations, and tests with single commands. Eloquent ORM maps database tables to PHP classes without manual SQL. Built-in features like authentication, rate limiting, and email sending eliminate common boilerplate. The Blade template engine compiles to plain PHP for zero-overhead rendering.

How to use

1. Create a new project: composer create-project laravel/laravel my-app.
2. Start the development server: cd my-app && php artisan serve.
3. Generate models, controllers, and migrations with artisan: php artisan make:model Post -mcr.

Example

# Create a new Laravel project
composer create-project laravel/laravel my-app
cd my-app
php artisan serve
# Visit http://localhost:8000

# Generate a model with migration and controller
php artisan make:model Post -mcr

// routes/api.php
Route::apiResource('posts', PostController::class);

// app/Http/Controllers/PostController.php
public function index()
{
    return Post::with('author')
        ->where('published', true)
        ->orderBy('created_at', 'desc')
        ->paginate(20);
}

public function store(Request $request)
{
    $validated = $request->validate([
        'title' => 'required|max:255',
        'body' => 'required',
    ]);
    return Post::create($validated);
}

Related on TokRepo

• Coding AI Tools — Web framework and development tools
• API Tools — API framework resources

Common pitfalls

• Laravel's magic (auto-resolution, implicit model binding, accessors/mutators) can be confusing for newcomers. Read the documentation thoroughly before relying on conventions.
• Eloquent's eager loading (with()) is critical for performance. Without it, N+1 query problems silently degrade performance on collection pages.
• Laravel major version upgrades (e.g., 10 to 11) include breaking changes. Use the upgrade guide and test thoroughly before upgrading production applications.