Laravel 12 Complete Guide: From Basics to Advanced

Laravel 12 is here — and it's smoother, smarter, and more developer-friendly than ever. Whether you’re a beginner exploring Laravel or a seasoned developer ready to dive into the latest features, this guide will walk you through Laravel 12 from the ground up.

📌 What is Laravel?

Laravel is a PHP framework designed to make web development easier and faster through elegant syntax, built-in tools, and a strong ecosystem. It's ideal for building everything from simple websites to enterprise-grade applications.

🛠️ What's New in Laravel 12?

Laravel 12 builds on its solid foundation with a few impactful upgrades:

• Native Type Declarations: Laravel now encourages native type declarations (int, string, etc.) across controllers, models, and routes.

• Slimmer Application Skeleton: The default Laravel 12 install is cleaner — fewer preloaded files, more room to scale.

• Middleware Groups Overhaul: Middleware groups are now more flexible and better suited for modern API-first applications.

• Enhanced Route Handling: Route caching is lightning-fast, with better support for closures and dynamic route generation.

• Laravel Reverb (Real-time): Laravel now supports WebSockets natively using Laravel Reverb.

• Pest Testing by Default: Pest comes pre-installed — beautiful, expressive testing is the new default.

🧱 Laravel 12 Basic Structure (Fresh Project)

Let’s take a quick look at a new Laravel 12 project:

bash
composer create-project laravel/laravel my-app
cd my-app
php artisan serve

Directory structure highlights:

• app/Http/Controllers: All controller logic

• routes/web.php: Your web routes

• resources/views: Blade templates

• app/Models: Your Eloquent models

📁 Routing in Laravel 12

php
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;

Route::get('/', function () {
    return view('welcome');
});

Route::get('/blog/{slug}', [BlogController::class, 'show']);

Now supports full route attributes:

php
Route::get('/admin', AdminController::class)
     ->middleware(['auth', 'verified'])
     ->name('admin.dashboard');

🧠 Powerful Blade Upgrades

Blade now supports attributes spreading, components, and slot-based templating more cleanly.

blade
<x-alert type="error">
    <x-slot name="title">Error</x-slot>
    Something went wrong.
</x-alert>

🧬 Eloquent ORM – Cleaner Than Ever

php
$posts = Post::where('status', 'published')->latest()->paginate(10);

Post::create([
    'title' => 'New Blog Post',
    'slug' => 'new-blog-post',
    'content' => 'Here’s your content...',
]);

Also, native casts like AsEnumCollection, AsEncryptedArrayObject, and new Attribute::macro() make data handling intuitive.

📡 Laravel Reverb: Real-Time Built-in

Say goodbye to third-party socket servers. Laravel Reverb integrates WebSockets with native Laravel broadcasting.

bash
npm install laravel-reverb
php artisan reverb:start

Then broadcast events from your backend directly:

php
broadcast(new NewMessage($message));

Frontend can listen using Laravel Echo or custom listeners.

🧪 Pest: Testing Made Elegant

Laravel 12 ships with Pest, a modern PHP testing framework:

php
test('homepage loads', function () {
    $this->get('/')->assertStatus(200);
});

Write expressive tests without boilerplate. It’s perfect for both TDD lovers and beginners.

🔐 Laravel Breeze / Jetstream Authentication

Want authentication quickly?

bash
composer require laravel/breeze --dev
php artisan breeze:install blade
npm install && npm run dev
php artisan migrate

Or go advanced with Jetstream (teams, API tokens, etc.):

bash
composer require laravel/jetstream
php artisan jetstream:install livewire

📈 Performance Upgrades

• Faster route caching with php artisan route:cache

• Eager loading on steroids: $query->with(['user', 'comments.author'])

• Queues run smoother with Octane and Swoole integration

💡 Tips for Laravel 12 Developers

1. Always use .env for config — Laravel 12 strictly separates environment settings.

2. Stick to service containers for better dependency injection.

3. Use model factories and seeders to quickly test logic.

4. Upgrade Composer to v2+ to avoid compatibility issues.

5. Keep PHP version ≥ 8.2 for Laravel 12 support.

🎯 Final Thoughts

Laravel 12 continues the framework’s tradition of being developer-first — with clean syntax, smart tools, and performance in mind. Whether you’re building a portfolio site, a blog, or a scalable SaaS, Laravel 12 has your back.

📥 Useful Links

• Laravel Official Docs

• Pest PHP

• Laravel Reverb

• Portfolio