Now that your Laravel project is running, here are the important next steps to get fully set up and ready to develop.
Laravel uses an .env
file to manage environment-specific settings (like database, app URL, etc.).
The .env
file is located in the root of your project:
myapp/.env
You can configure values like:
APP_NAME=Laravel
APP_ENV=local
APP_KEY=base64:...
APP_URL=http://127.0.0.1:8000
DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=your_db_name
DB_USERNAME=root
DB_PASSWORD=
— Tip: After editing .env
, always run:
php artisan config:clear
– This ensures Laravel reloads the environment configuration.
.env
file with the correct database name, username, and password.
php artisan migrate
Laravel uses an APP_KEY to secure encrypted data.
It’s automatically generated when you install the app, but if needed, you can (re)generate it with:
php artisan key:generate
You can keep using:
php artisan serve
Or set up a local server like:
– To use Laravel Sail (if you want a Docker-based environment):
(Requires Docker installed)
composer require laravel/sail --dev
php artisan sail:install
./vendor/bin/sail up
Here’s where you can start working on:
routes/web.php
php artisan make:controller YourControllerName
php artisan make:model YourModelName
resources/views/
Example quick route (in routes/web.php
):
Route::get('/', function () {
return view('welcome');
});
✔️ Authentication (php artisan make:auth
for Laravel <7.x or use Laravel Breeze / Jetstream)
✔️ Migrations and Seeders
✔️ Eloquent ORM
✔️ Blade Templates
✔️ API Development
✔️ Queues, Jobs, Events, Notifications
Your Laravel environment is fully configured — now start building your application!