Laravel From Scratch (2026 Edition)

Join Jeffrey Way for Laravel From Scratch 2026 — a friendly, hands-on intro to modern Laravel fundamentals, tools, and best practices.

Set up your Laravel dev environment with Laravel Herd: install PHP, Composer, Node, scaffold a project, and explore routes/web.php and welcome view.

Learn Laravel routing: use Route::get and view(), add /about and /contact pages, and link between routes with ease.

DRY up views with Blade layouts: extract shared markup, use $slot, pass title props, Route::view, and merge $attributes for flexible components.

Pass data to Blade views in Laravel: use Route::view's third param or view(...), read query with request(), and rely on Blade escaping.

Master Blade directives: use @dump/@dd for debugging and clean control flow with @if, @foreach, and @forelse. Quick tips.

Build a tiny Laravel notebook: handle POST forms with @csrf, use request() to capture input, store ideas in session, and redirect home.

Master Laravel migrations, Eloquent models, and queries: create an ideas table, run artisan migrate, use Idea::create() and where() to filter ideas.

Build a RESTful CRUD flow for ideas: list, show, edit, update, delete, confidently using Laravel route model binding and method spoofing.

Organize Laravel routes with an IdeaController: move the form to ideas/create, implement seven resourceful actions, and centralize route logic.

Add request validation in Laravel: use request->validate, display errors with @error, and extract a reusable x-error component for cleaner forms.

Move validation into a Form Request: scaffold StoreIdeaRequest, use authorize() and rules(), customize messages, and simplify controller validation.

Polish UI quickly with Tailwind and DaisyUI: build nav, cards, and form controls; extract a nav component and reusable idea-card.

Learn Laravel authentication: implement register and login, validate input, hash passwords, add logout, and use @auth/@guest.

Associate ideas with users using foreignIdFor and cascading deletes, apply auth/guest middleware, use Auth::id(), and show each user's ideas.

Define Eloquent relations: Idea belongsTo creator, User hasMany ideas; use auth()->user()->ideas()->create() and fix view security holes.

Secure your Laravel app with Gates: define them in your provider, use @can for UI, and protect routes with can() or Gate::authorize.

Centralize Laravel authorization with an IdeaPolicy: implement an update rule, use $this->authorize or middleware, and handle Idea::class.

Bundle Tailwind/DaisyUI locally with Vite: configure @vite, edit resources/css/app.css, and use npm run dev/build for optimized assets.

Notify idea owners with Laravel Notifications: scaffold IdeaPublished, preview emails with Mailpit, and dispatch from IdeaController@store.

Move notifications to the background with ShouldQueue: push jobs, run php artisan queue:work, and inspect the jobs table to keep users fast.

Learn Pest PHP and browser testing: automate user flows with Playwright, write practical registration and /ideas tests using data-test attributes.

Build and deploy a feature-rich Idea app: init repo, push to GitHub, deploy with Forge, and add Pint, Rector, Code Rabbit, and Laravel Boost.

Scaffold Idea and Step models with migrations, factories, an IdeaStatus enum, relationships, defaults, and tests for a solid data foundation.

Set up a Tailwind theme and reusable UI: create layouts, nav, form/field components, and wire register/login routes for faster page building.

Write Pest browser tests for Laravel registration, login, and logout: use user factories, data-test selectors, and debug to verify happy/error paths.

Make Laravel flash messages come alive with Alpine.js: add a tiny x-data component using x-show, transition, and a timeout to auto-fade alerts.

Build polished idea cards for /ideas: create route/controller, extract reusable Blade components (x-card, x-idea-status), and prep for filtering.

Add status filtering to ideas via the query string and an Eloquent scope; display filter pills with counts handled in the Idea model.

Build a functional single-idea page: create show.blade.php, wire IdeaController@show, render title, links, nav, and a delete form.

Build an accessible AlpineJS modal: open via events, use x-data/x-show with transitions, add escape/click-away handlers, extract reusable x-modal.

Build an idea form: wire to POST /ideas, make a textarea-aware field, add an Alpine status selector, add client-side validation and persist ideas.

Automate testing of your idea form with browser tests: add data-test attributes, simulate clicks/fills as a user, and assert persistence.

Easily add one-or-many link inputs to ideas: use Alpine x-model and an add button, submit links[] array, and validate server-side.

Add actionable steps to ideas: reuse modal, bind Alpine inputs to a steps array, validate and persist them, render and toggle completion.

Add featured image uploads to ideas: use a file input, store files with Laravel storage, expose via storage:link and show in views.

Refactor idea creation into a reusable CreateIdea action: remove logic from controllers, use handle(), constructor injection and CurrentUser.

Secure your app with Laravel authorization: implement gates and an IdeaPolicy, use authorize/can middleware, and add tests to lock access.

Edit ideas with a reusable Alpine modal: extract modal into a component, test the edit flow, and make open-modal dispatch work on show page.

Implement an UpdateIdea action: handle image uploads, update attributes, sync object-based steps, and secure the flow with browser and unit tests.

Add profile edit flow: build /profile/edit with populated form, validate updates, handle password and email changes, notify and test.

Deploy to Forge, run tests, format code, then add a formatted_description accessor with Str::markdown and Tailwind typography for polished markdown.

Improve your finished Laravel app: add team collaboration and advanced authorization, or explore Livewire or Vue/React with Inertia for richer SPAs.