Artisan & Dev Tools

make:* commands generate boilerplate classes from stub templates into the conventional folders. make:model Shipment -a also creates a migration, factory, seeder, policy and a resource controller wired to StoreShipmentRequest and UpdateShipmentRequest.

php artisan make:command ResendFailedInvoices writes a class to app/Console/Commands, which Laravel registers automatically. Its #[Signature] attribute names the command and declares input, #[Description] feeds the listing, and handle() does the work with container-injected services.

Laravel Pint is an opinionated PHP code style fixer built on PHP CS Fixer and shipped as a dev dependency of new Laravel apps. Running ./vendor/bin/pint rewrites your PHP files to the laravel preset; adding --test only reports.

Laravel Sail is a bash script plus a generated compose.yaml that runs the app and its services in Docker. In Laravel 13 you run composer require laravel/sail --dev, then php artisan sail:install, then ./vendor/bin/sail up.

In a Laravel signature, {customer} is required, {customer?} optional, {customer=5} defaulted and {customer*} an array. {--dry-run} is a true/false switch, {--limit=} takes a string value, {--limit=50} has a default, {--L|limit=} adds a shortcut and {--id=*} repeats.

php artisan tinker opens a PsySH-based REPL with the whole Laravel application booted, so Eloquent, facades and services work interactively. It uses the same configuration and database as the CLI, so every write is real.

Sail's commands run inside the laravel.test container, where the pinned PHP runs and hosts like mysql resolve. Host php artisan migrate uses the host's PHP and cannot reach DB_HOST=mysql; sail composer, npm and test do the same in the container.

db:show summarises the database — engine, version, open connections and every table with its size; db:table details one table's columns, indexes and foreign keys; model:show joins a model's live columns with its casts, fillable and hidden flags, relations, events and observers.

stub:publish copies the framework's common generator templates into a stubs/ folder at the project root. Each make:* command checks that folder before its built-in stub, so edits there shape every class generated afterwards.

A Laravel command prints with info(), warn() and error(), shows rows with table() and long loops with withProgressBar(), and signals failure through its exit code: return self::FAILURE or call fail(). Printing an error alone still exits 0.

A pint.json in the project root sets "preset" (laravel, per, psr12, symfony or empty), a "rules" object whose entries replace or disable the preset's rules, and "exclude", "notName" or "notPath" to skip folders, name patterns or exact files.

--test writes nothing and exits 1 if any file would change; --bail does the same but stops at the first offending file; --repair writes the fixes yet still exits 1 when it changed anything. Plain pint fixes and exits 0.

PHP is chosen by the laravel.test build context in compose.yaml (vendor/laravel/sail/runtimes/8.x) plus its image name, followed by sail build --no-cache. sail:add appends services; sail:publish copies Sail's Dockerfiles into ./docker for editing.

--env sets the environment name the command runs under and, when config is not cached, loads .env.<name> instead of .env if that file exists. Without such a file, or with cached config, the values still come from .env or the cache.

Artisan::call() runs the command synchronously inside the current request, returns its exit code, buffers its output for Artisan::output() and lets exceptions propagate. Artisan::queue() runs it later on a worker; inside a command, $this->call() and callSilently() run another command.

Implementing Isolatable adds an --isolated option; with it, Laravel takes an atomic cache lock named after the command before handle() runs and skips the run if the lock is held. isolatableId() should return the customer ID so different customers can run at once.

Without an interactive terminal, Laravel Prompts does not ask: each prompt returns its default after validating it. confirm() defaults to true, so an unattended run answers yes; a required prompt with no usable default throws NonInteractiveValidationException.

Land one formatting-only commit that runs Pint over the whole app, then scope every later run: --dirty locally or in a pre-commit hook, --diff=origin/main --test in CI, with one committed pint.json and a locked Pint version.

Sail's image is a development box: artisan serve runs PHP's built-in development server, Xdebug and build tools are installed, code is bind-mounted and credentials are throwaway. Pick Sail for repo-pinned setups, Herd for native speed, custom Docker for production parity.