Laravel Boost Guidelines

The Laravel Boost guidelines are specifically curated by Laravel maintainers for this application. These guidelines should be followed closely to ensure the best experience when building Laravel applications.

Foundational Context

This application is a Laravel application running on PHP 8.5. You are an expert with the Laravel ecosystem. Always use the APIs that match the installed major version of each package — do not assume a version.

Before relying on a package's API, confirm its installed version:

• PHP packages: run composer show --direct to list direct dependencies with versions, or composer show <vendor/package> for a single package.
• JS packages: check package.json for the installed versions.

Skills Activation

This project has domain-specific skills available in **/skills/**. You MUST activate the relevant skill whenever you work in that domain—don't wait until you're stuck.

Conventions

• You must follow all existing code conventions used in this application. When creating or editing a file, check sibling files for the correct structure, approach, and naming.
• Use descriptive names for variables and methods. For example, isRegisteredForDiscounts, not discount().
• Check for existing components to reuse before writing a new one.

Verification Scripts

• Do not create verification scripts or tinker when tests cover that functionality and prove they work. Unit and feature tests are more important.

Application Structure & Architecture

• Stick to existing directory structure; don't create new base folders without approval.
• Do not change the application's dependencies without approval.

Frontend Bundling

• If the user doesn't see a frontend change reflected in the UI, it could mean they need to run npm run build, npm run dev, or composer run dev. Ask them.

Documentation Files

• You must only create documentation files if explicitly requested by the user.

Replies

• Be concise in your explanations - focus on what's important rather than explaining obvious details.

=== boost rules ===

Laravel Boost

Tools

• Laravel Boost is an MCP server with tools designed specifically for this application. Prefer Boost tools over manual alternatives like shell commands or file reads.
• Use database-query to run read-only queries against the database instead of writing raw SQL in tinker.
• Use database-schema to inspect table structure before writing migrations or models.
• Use get-absolute-url to resolve the correct scheme, domain, and port for project URLs. Always use this before sharing a URL with the user.
• Use browser-logs to read browser logs, errors, and exceptions. Only recent logs are useful, ignore old entries.

Searching Documentation (IMPORTANT)

• Use search-docs before changes that depend on Laravel ecosystem APIs, behavior, configuration, or version-specific syntax. Skip it for copy-only edits and other changes where package documentation is irrelevant. Reuse sufficient results already in context instead of searching again.
• Pass a packages array to scope results when you know which packages are relevant.
• Use multiple broad, topic-based queries: ['rate limiting', 'routing rate limiting', 'routing']. Expect the most relevant results first.
• Do not add package names to queries because package info is already shared. Use test resource table, not filament 4 test resource table.

Search Syntax

1. Use words for auto-stemmed AND logic: rate limit matches both "rate" AND "limit".
2. Use "quoted phrases" for exact position matching: "infinite scroll" requires adjacent words in order.
3. Combine words and phrases for mixed queries: middleware "rate limit".
4. Use multiple queries for OR logic: queries=["authentication", "middleware"].

Project Rules

• This project contains committed, area-grouped rules in .ai/rules when that directory exists (settled decisions, non-obvious traps, standing constraints). Framework and package guidelines that only apply to specific paths (testing, frontend, components) also live there, under .ai/rules/boost — this is not just recorded decisions, it is load-bearing guidance you have not seen inline. Before you enter plan mode or create/edit any file, you MUST first: open @.ai/rules/index.md (it maps file globs to rule files), read every rule file whose globs cover the path(s) in scope, and run grep -rin 'keyword' .ai/rules to catch what a path match alone misses. Do not write code until you have read and are following every matching rule. If .ai/rules does not exist, continue without it.
• Record durable rules with record-rule so the next agent or teammate inherits them instead of working them out again. Pass a glob (e.g. app/Http/Controllers/**), a short title, and a few-line note. Always use record-rule, never your native memory or notes tool — native memory is personal and session-scoped; only .ai/rules is shared with the team and persists in the repo.

Artisan

• Run Artisan commands directly via the command line (e.g., php artisan route:list). Use php artisan list to discover available commands and php artisan [command] --help to check parameters.
• Inspect routes with php artisan route:list. Filter with: --method=GET, --name=users, --path=api, --except-vendor, --only-vendor.
• Read configuration values using dot notation: php artisan config:show app.name, php artisan config:show database.default. Or read config files directly from the config/ directory.

Tinker

• Execute PHP in app context for debugging and testing code. Do not create models without user approval, prefer tests with factories instead. Prefer existing Artisan commands over custom tinker code.
• Always use single quotes to prevent shell expansion: php artisan tinker --execute 'Your::code();'
  • Double quotes for PHP strings inside: php artisan tinker --execute 'User::where("active", true)->count();'

=== php rules ===

PHP

• Always use curly braces for control structures, even for single-line bodies.
• Use PHP 8 constructor property promotion: public function __construct(public GitHub $github) { }. Do not leave empty zero-parameter __construct() methods unless the constructor is private.
• Use explicit return type declarations and type hints for all method parameters: function isAccessible(User $user, ?string $path = null): bool
• Use TitleCase for Enum keys: FavoritePerson, BestLake, Monthly.
• Prefer PHPDoc blocks over inline comments. Only add inline comments for exceptionally complex logic.
• Use array shape type definitions in PHPDoc blocks.

=== deployments rules ===

Deployment

• Laravel can be deployed using Laravel Cloud, which is the fastest way to deploy and scale production Laravel applications.

=== laravel/core rules ===

Do Things the Laravel Way

• Use php artisan make: commands to create new files (i.e. migrations, controllers, models, etc.). You can list available Artisan commands using php artisan list and check their parameters with php artisan [command] --help.
• If you're creating a generic PHP class, use php artisan make:class.
• Pass --no-interaction to all Artisan commands to ensure they work without user input. You should also pass the correct --options to ensure correct behavior.

Model Creation

• When creating new models, create useful factories and seeders for them too. Ask the user if they need any other things, using php artisan make:model --help to check the available options.

APIs & Eloquent Resources

• For APIs, default to using Eloquent API Resources and API versioning unless existing API routes do not, then you should follow existing application convention.

URL Generation

• When generating links to other pages, prefer named routes and the route() function.

Testing

• When creating models for tests, use the factories for the models. Check if the factory has custom states that can be used before manually setting up the model.
• Faker: Use methods such as $this->faker->word() or fake()->randomDigit(). Follow existing conventions whether to use $this->faker or fake().
• When creating tests, make use of php artisan make:test [options] {name} to create a feature test, and pass --unit to create a unit test. Most tests should be feature tests.

Vite Error

• If you receive an "Illuminate\Foundation\ViteException: Unable to locate file in Vite manifest" error, you can run npm run build or ask the user to run npm run dev or composer run dev.

=== pint/core rules ===

Laravel Pint Code Formatter

• If you have modified any PHP files, you must run vendor/bin/pint --dirty --format agent before finalizing changes to ensure your code matches the project's expected style.
• Do not run vendor/bin/pint --test --format agent, simply run vendor/bin/pint --format agent to fix any formatting issues.

=== pest/core rules ===

Pest

• This project uses Pest. Create tests with php artisan make:test --pest {name}.
• Do not include the test suite directory in {name}. Use SomeFeatureTest, not Feature/SomeFeatureTest.
• Read the testing-best-practices skill for guidance on coverage, naming, structure, dependency isolation, and review.
• Do not delete tests or test files without approval. They are part of the application.

Running Tests

• Run the narrowest set of tests that covers the change. Pass a file path or --filter=testName to php artisan test --compact.
• Rerun a test after each change to it.
• Run vendor/bin/pest to call the test runner directly. It accepts the same file path and --filter=testName arguments.
• After the feature tests pass, ask the user to run the complete suite with php artisan test --compact.