Laravel 11/12 App Guidelines Overview
Apply a consistent workflow for Laravel 11/12 apps with optional frontend stacks, Dockerized commands, and Laravel Boost tooling.
Quick Start Read repository instructions first: AGENTS.md. If docs/ exists, read docs/README.md and relevant module docs before decisions. Detect the stack and command locations; do not guess. Use Laravel Boost search-docs for Laravel ecosystem guidance; use Context7 only if Boost docs are unavailable. Follow repo conventions for naming, UI language, docs-first policies, and existing component patterns. Stack Detection Check composer.json, package.json, docker-compose., and config/ to confirm: Docker Compose/Sail vs host commands API-only vs full-stack Frontend framework (Inertia/React, Livewire, Vue, Blade) Auth (Fortify, Sanctum, Passport, custom) Laravel 11/12 Core Conventions Use the Laravel 11/12 structure: configure middleware, exceptions, and routes in bootstrap/app.php; service providers in bootstrap/providers.php; console configuration in routes/console.php. Use Eloquent models and relationships first; avoid raw queries and DB:: unless truly necessary. Create Form Request classes for validation instead of inline validation. Prefer named routes and route() for URL generation. When altering columns, include all existing attributes in the migration to avoid dropping them. Ask before destructive database operations (e.g., reset/rollback/fresh). API-Only Mode Use routes/api.php; avoid Inertia and frontend assumptions. Prefer API Resources and versioning if the repo already uses them. Follow the repo's auth stack (Sanctum/Passport/custom) and response format conventions. Do not require Vite/Tailwind/NPM unless the repo already includes them. Inertia + React + Wayfinder (if present) Use Inertia::render() for server-side routing; place pages under resources/js/Pages unless the repo says otherwise. Use