laravel

Laravel is a PHP web application framework built around expressive, readable syntax and covering the common tasks most web projects need out of the box. It bundles routing, dependency injection, session and cache backends, a database ORM (Eloquent), schema migrations, background job processing (queues), and real-time event broadcasting, so you're not assembling those pieces from separate libraries yourself. This particular repository is the standard starting skeleton for a new Laravel application. It's aimed at PHP developers building web applications who want a fuller-featured framework with strong documentation and learning resources behind it.

Key features

• Expressive routing engine: a simple, fast router for defining application URLs and behavior.
• Dependency injection container: a container for managing class dependencies throughout the application.
• Multiple session and cache backends: swap between different storage backends for sessions and caching without changing application code.
• Eloquent ORM: an expressive, intuitive database ORM for working with your data as objects instead of raw SQL.
• Database-agnostic migrations: schema migrations that work across different database engines.
• Queues: background job processing for offloading slow or deferred work from the request cycle.
• Event broadcasting: real-time event broadcasting for pushing updates to connected clients.
• Agentic development support: Laravel Boost adds 15+ tools and skills for AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot) to help them follow Laravel best practices while building.
• Deep learning resources: beyond the official docs, Laracasts offers thousands of video tutorials on Laravel, modern PHP, unit testing, and JavaScript, and Laravel Learn offers guided, bite-sized lessons building a real application from scratch.
• Documented security process: security vulnerabilities have a clear, direct reporting path (email to the creator) rather than a generic issue tracker, with a stated commitment to prompt handling.

Ideal use cases

Laravel fits PHP developers and teams building web applications who want a framework that covers routing, data access, background jobs, and real-time features together, with consistent conventions across all of them, rather than combining separate libraries for each concern. Its documentation and video tutorial library (Laracasts, Laravel Learn) make it a reasonable choice for developers newer to PHP or web development who want a guided path. The Boost integration also specifically targets teams using AI coding agents, since the framework's predictable structure and conventions are called out as making it easier for agents to work within.

It's a weaker fit outside the PHP ecosystem, obviously, and less suited to projects that specifically want a minimal, unopinionated toolkit rather than a fuller framework with its own conventions to learn. If your project is a small script or a single API endpoint with no need for an ORM, queues, or broadcasting, adopting all of Laravel's structure for that may be more than you need. Teams that specifically work with AI coding agents day to day are also a good match, given the framework invests directly in agent tooling through Boost rather than treating it as an afterthought.

Installation

The README doesn't include a project-creation command in its text; the standard way to start a new Laravel application isn't spelled out here, so check the Laravel documentation for the current recommended method.

What the README does document is adding Laravel Boost to an existing application for AI-assisted development:

composer require laravel/boost --dev

php artisan boost:install

This installs a package of tools and skills that agents like Claude Code, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot can use while working in the codebase, aimed at keeping their output aligned with Laravel conventions. For general framework learning, the README points to the official documentation, Laracasts' video library covering Laravel, modern PHP, and testing, and Laravel Learn for guided, project-based lessons that also cover PHP fundamentals. If you plan to contribute to the framework itself rather than just build with it, the contribution guide and Code of Conduct linked in the README cover the expectations for that.