Getting Started with Laravel 12

Tip: Skip the Laravel Installer

You don't need laravel/installer globally. Just use Composer directly:

composer create-project laravel/laravel myapp

The installer is just a thin wrapper. Composer does the same thing.

Tip: Use --no-dev for Production

When deploying, install without dev dependencies:

composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader

This shaves off ~50 packages you don't need in production.

Gotcha: The .env File is NOT for Production

Never commit .env. Use actual environment variables on your server. The .env file is for local development only.

Tip: Run php artisan optimize After Deployment

php artisan config:cache
php artisan route:cache
php artisan view:cache

This caches everything and speeds up your app significantly.

Gotcha: SQLite is Not for Production

Laravel defaults to SQLite for quick starts. Switch to PostgreSQL or MySQL before you go live. SQLite doesn't handle concurrent writes well.

Tip: Use php artisan serve Only for Development

It's a single-threaded PHP server. For anything serious, use Nginx or Apache.

Tip: The APP_KEY is Critical

If you lose your APP_KEY, all encrypted data (sessions, cookies, encrypted columns) becomes unreadable. Back it up.

Tip: Use route:cache Carefully

php artisan route:cache is fast, but it doesn't work with closure-based routes. Every time you cache routes, Laravel serializes them. If you have Route::redirect() or closure callbacks, the cache breaks. Stick to controller-based routes in production.

Tip: Model APP_KEY Rotation

Rotating APP_KEY invalidates all encrypted data — cookies, encrypted DB columns, and password reset tokens. If you must rotate (e.g., after a leak), plan a migration that re-encrypts existing data with the new key.

Gotcha: Local Scope Leaks

Global scopes defined in booted() apply to ALL queries on that model — including relationships. An innocent User::all() in admin panel might exclude soft-deleted users if a global scope is active.

Senior Insight

I've onboarded dozens of developers onto Laravel projects, and the single biggest friction point is environment setup. I recommend investing in a Docker Compose setup tailored to your stack rather than relying solely on Sail — the 30 minutes you spend configuring it upfront saves days of 'works on my machine' debugging. Also, run php artisan about after any major upgrade; it gives you a complete environment snapshot and often reveals misconfigured drivers before they cause production issues.

Source: Laravel News (https://laravel-news.com/), Freek.dev (https://freek.dev/tags/laravel), Spatie Blog (https://spatie.be/blog)