How to Set Up and Run a Laravel Project

Laravel is a powerful PHP framework for building web applications. This guide will walk you through setting up and running a Laravel project on your local environment.

Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure you have the following installed on your system:

PHP (>= 8.1.0)

Composer (PHP dependency manager)

MySQL (or any other supported database)

Node.js and NPM (for frontend assets, optional)

Git (optional, but recommended)

Step 1: Clone the Laravel Project

If your Laravel project is hosted on GitHub or GitLab, you can clone it using:

 git clone https://github.com/your-repo/project.git
 cd project

Step 2: Install Dependencies

Run the following command to install Laravel dependencies:

composer install

If you encounter permission issues, try:

composer install --no-interaction --prefer-dist --optimize-autoloader

Step 3: Configure the Environment File

Duplicate the .env.example file and rename it to .env:

cp .env.example .env

Edit the .env file to match your database credentials:

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=your_database
DB_USERNAME=your_username
DB_PASSWORD=your_password

Step 4: Generate Application Key

Run the following command to generate an application key:

php artisan key:generate

Step 5: Run Migrations and Seed Database

To set up your database schema, run:

php artisan migrate

If your project includes seeders, run:

php artisan db:seed

Step 6: Serve the Laravel Project

Start the Laravel development server:

php artisan serve

Your application will be available at http://127.0.0.1:8000.

Step 7: Set Up Frontend (Optional)

If your project uses frontend assets like Vue or React, install NPM dependencies and compile assets:

npm install && npm run dev

Step 8: Set Up Storage and Cache (Optional)

To link the storage folder, run:

php artisan storage:link

To clear and optimize the cache, run:

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