Setup

Just enough to get php artisan serve running. No Forge, no Docker lecture - unless you want Sail later.

What you need

• PHP 8.3+ (8.4 is great)
• Composer 2.x
• Node 20+ (Laravel's frontend uses Vite - you already know this world)
• A database for later chapters: SQLite is perfect for learning (zero babysitting)

Check:

php -v
composer -V
node -v

Create a project

composer create-project laravel/laravel laravel-playground
cd laravel-playground

Comments for the code above:

• This downloads Laravel + dependencies into laravel-playground/
• It generates .env from .env.example and an APP_KEY
• You're looking at a real app skeleton - not a toy framework demo

Run it

php artisan serve

Open http://127.0.0.1:8000 - welcome page. Good enough.

In another terminal (when we hit frontend assets):

npm install
npm run dev

Yes - Laravel ships a Vite setup. Your FE muscle memory applies.

SQLite for learning (recommended)

In .env:

DB_CONNECTION=sqlite
# leave DB_HOST / DB_DATABASE empty-ish for default database/database.sqlite

Create the file if needed:

touch database/database.sqlite
php artisan migrate

MySQL/Postgres work fine too - more moving parts for day one.

Artisan is your friend

php artisan list
php artisan about
php artisan route:list

about is a nice sanity dump (PHP version, env, drivers). route:list is the Laravel equivalent of "show me the router table".

Sail? (optional)

Laravel Sail = Docker Compose wrapper. Handy if you want Redis/MySQL matching production without installing them on the host. For this tutorial, plain PHP + SQLite is enough. Come back to Sail when the team uses it.

Editor

• PHP Intelephense / Laravel Idea / Laravel extension - whatever helps autocomplete Facades and routes
• Don't commit .env - commit .env.example

Once the welcome page loads, you're set. Next: where everything lives.

Best,

-- ł.