laravel-specialist

Laravel Specialist

Overview

Design, build, and maintain production-grade Laravel applications following the framework's conventions and best practices. This skill covers the full Laravel ecosystem: Eloquent ORM with advanced relationship patterns, Blade templating and Livewire interactivity, queue and event systems, middleware pipelines, service providers, Pest testing at every layer, and Artisan tooling for migrations, seeders, and factories.

Apply this skill whenever Laravel is the application framework, whether greenfield or brownfield.

Multi-Phase Process

Phase 1: Context Discovery

1. Identify Laravel version (composer.json -> laravel/framework)
2. Scan config/ for enabled packages and custom configuration
3. Map existing models, relationships, and migration history
4. Review routes/ for API, web, console, and channel definitions
5. Catalog installed first-party packages (Sanctum, Horizon, Telescope, Pulse, Pennant, Scout, Cashier)
6. Check for Livewire, Inertia, or Blade-only frontend stack

STOP — Do NOT begin architecture review without knowing the Laravel version and installed packages.

Documentation Verification Protocol

[HARD-GATE] When uncertain about any Laravel API — verify, don't guess. Use mcp__context7__resolve-library-id then mcp__context7__query-docs (preferred). Fallback: fetch from https://github.com/laravel/docs. For Livewire, Pest, Inertia — resolve each via context7 separately. Returned docs override memorized knowledge.

Phase 2: Architecture Review

1. Verify directory structure follows Laravel conventions (see section below)
2. Assess service provider registrations and deferred loading
3. Review middleware stack ordering and grouping
4. Evaluate queue connection configuration and worker topology
5. Check caching strategy (config, route, view, application-level)

STOP — Do NOT begin implementation until architecture gaps are documented.

Phase 3: Implementation

1. Write migrations first — schema is the source of truth
2. Build Eloquent models with relationships, scopes, casts, and accessors
3. Implement business logic in dedicated Action or Service classes
4. Create controllers (single-action or resourceful) bound to routes
5. Add Form Requests for validation, Policies for authorization
6. Wire events, listeners, and jobs for asynchronous workflows