laravel-13-expert

Laravel 13 Expert

Complete reference for building production-grade Laravel 13.x applications. Laravel 13 was released March 17, 2026 and requires PHP 8.3+.

When to read reference files

This skill is organized with a main SKILL.md (this file) covering core concepts, and reference files for deep-dive topics. Read the appropriate reference file when the task involves:

• AI SDK, agents, tools, embeddings, images, audio, MCP → Read references/ai-features.md
• Upgrading from Laravel 12 to 13 → Read references/upgrade-guide.md

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What's New in Laravel 13

Laravel 13 focuses on AI-native workflows, stronger defaults, and more expressive APIs. Key additions:

First-Party AI SDK (laravel/ai)

A unified API for text generation, tool-calling agents, embeddings, audio, images, and vector-store integrations. Provider-agnostic (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, xAI, Mistral, Ollama, etc.).

use App\Ai\Agents\SalesCoach;

$response = SalesCoach::make()->prompt('Analyze this sales transcript...');
return (string) $response;

Laravel MCP (laravel/mcp)

Build Model Context Protocol servers so AI clients can interact with your Laravel app. Define servers, tools, resources, and prompts.

use Laravel\Mcp\Facades\Mcp;
Mcp::web('/mcp/weather', WeatherServer::class);

Laravel Boost (laravel/boost)

MCP server that gives AI agents Laravel-specific context, 15+ tools, 17,000+ pieces of vectorized docs, and AI guidelines.

composer require laravel/boost --dev
php artisan boost:install

JSON:API Resources

First-party JSON:API compliant resource serialization with relationship inclusion, sparse fieldsets, and links.

Queue Routing

Central routing rules for jobs by class:

Queue::route(ProcessPodcast::class, connection: 'redis', queue: 'podcasts');

Expanded PHP Attributes

Declarative controller and job configuration:

#[Middleware('auth')]
class CommentController
{
    #[Middleware('subscribed')]
    #[Authorize('create', [Comment::class, 'post'])]
    public function store(Post $post) { /* ... */ }
}