Laravel Commands & Tips: Essential Artisan, NPM, and Vite Commands for Faster Development
Laravel is packed with powerful tooling, but knowing which commands to use — and when — is what really speeds up development. This guide covers the most useful Laravel Artisan commands, frontend asset commands using NPM and Vite, and practical Laravel tips I use daily when building production apps with Laravel.
Whether you’re new to Laravel or looking to tighten your workflow, this is a solid command reference to bookmark.
Laravel Artisan Commands You Should Know
Start the Laravel development server
php artisan serve
Starts a local development server at http://127.0.0.1:8000. Ideal for quick local testing.
Clear Laravel caches (fixes most “why is this broken?” issues)
php artisan optimize:clear
Clears:
- Application cache
- Config cache
- Route cache
- Compiled views
💡 If something isn’t updating, run this first.
Optimise Laravel for production
php artisan optimize
Caches config, routes, and views for improved performance in production environments.
Laravel Database & Migration Commands
Run database migrations
php artisan migrate
Applies all pending migrations.
Roll back the last migration batch
php artisan migrate:rollback
Useful when a migration goes wrong and needs correcting.
Rebuild the database (development only)
php artisan migrate:fresh
Drops all tables and re-runs migrations. Never run this on production.
Seed the database
php artisan db:seed
Or migrate and seed in one step:
php artisan migrate --seed
Laravel Frontend Asset Commands (NPM, Vite & Tailwind)
Modern Laravel projects use Vite to handle frontend assets such as Tailwind CSS and JavaScript.
Install frontend dependencies
npm install
Run this after cloning a Laravel project or pulling new dependencies.
Run Laravel Vite in development mode
npm run dev
This command:
- Compiles assets
- Watches for file changes
- Enables hot module replacement (HMR)
- You’ll use this constantly during development.
- Build Laravel assets for production
npm run build
Creates optimised, versioned assets for production deployment.
⚠️ Always run this before deploying to a live server (or in CI).
Common Laravel asset issue fix
If CSS or JS isn’t updating:
npm run dev
php artisan optimize:clear
This resolves most frontend-related caching problems.
Laravel Testing & Debugging Commands
Run all tests
php artisan test
Run a specific test file
php artisan test tests/Feature/AuthTest.php
Speeds up feedback when working on a single feature.
Laravel Tinker (interactive REPL)
php artisan tinker
Test logic and inspect data quickly:
User::count();
Order::latest()->first();
Tinker is one of the fastest ways to debug or explore your application.
Laravel Code Generation Commands
Generate a model with everything included
php artisan make:model Post -mfs
Creates:
- Model
- Migration
- Factory
- Seeder
Huge productivity win when scaffolding features.
Create a resource controller
php artisan make:controller PostController --resource
Includes all standard REST methods (index, store, update, etc.).
Create a form request
php artisan make:request StorePostRequest
Keeps validation logic clean and reusable.
Laravel Performance & Production Commands
Cache configuration
php artisan config:cache
Cache routes
php artisan route:cache
⚠️ Avoid route caching if your app relies heavily on route closures.
Laravel Tips & Tricks That Save Time
Use route:list to debug routing issues
php artisan route:list
Filter results:
php artisan route:list --path=admin
Prefer dump() over dd() in loops
dump($user);
dump() doesn’t halt execution, making it safer during iteration.
Queue slow tasks
Emails, exports, and API calls should be queued:
php artisan queue:work
This keeps requests fast and improves user experience.
Respect Laravel environments
Use .env files properly and avoid hardcoding environment logic in your codebase.
Read Laravel error pages carefully
Laravel’s exception pages are detailed for a reason — the stack trace usually points straight to the issue.
Final Thoughts
Mastering Laravel commands — from Artisan to npm run dev and npm run build — dramatically improves development speed and confidence. Once these commands become muscle memory, Laravel really starts to shine.
If you’re serious about Laravel development, keep a personal list of commands and patterns you use most. It pays off fast.
Happy building 🚀