Laravel Development Environment Setup

Overview

This is a hybrid environment with the web browser and VS Code IDE installed in Win11 and all other dev tools installed in WSL2.

Win11: VS Code IDE with recommended extensions
WSL2: PHP, MariaDB/Postgres, Laravel, VS Code remote development extensions

This environment does not use docker inside WSL as VS Code extensions cannot work inside docker. Hence all the dev tools are installed natively in WSL and VS Code will automatically detect/install required extensions to work with WSL.

Software Used

1. Windows 11
2. Ubuntu 22.04 in WSL
3. VS Code
4. Laravel 10.x

Installation Steps

1. Install Ubuntu 22.04 LTS in WSL
2. Install required packages apt install php-cli php-common php-curl php-mbstring php-mysql php-xml php-zip
3. Development packages apt install git
4. Database apt intall mariadb-server or apt install postgresql
5. Download the latest composer package to /usr/local/bin
6. Use composer to install laravel.

Installing Language Support for VS Code

1. Install Laravel IDE Helper for full VS Code intellisense support
2. composer require --dev barryvdh/laravel-ide-helper
3. Add /_ide_helper* to .gitignore to ensure ide-helper files are not committed into the Git repo
4. Run php artisan clear-compiled
5. Run php artisan ide-helper:generate to create Facades
6. Run php artisan ide-helper:models to create Models
7. Use the default "no" when prompted.
8. In composer.json add the below to ensure IDE helper PHP files are recreated whenever composer updates dependencies.

    "scripts": {
        "post-update-cmd": [
            "@ide-helper"
        ],
        "ide-helper": [
            "@php artisan ide-helper:generate",
            "@php artisan ide-helper:models -N"
        ]
    }

9. You can now composer run ide-helper anytime to recreate the ide-helper files.

PHP Code Formatting Using Pint

1. Laravel Pint is automatically installed in Laravel v10
2. Install the Run on Save VS Code extension
3. In VS Code settings.json, add the following code to run pint whenever any .php file is saved.

"emeraldwalk.runonsave": {
  "commands": [
    {
      "match": "\\.php$",
      "cmd": "${workspaceFolder}/vendor/bin/pint ${file}"
    }
  ]
}

Rejecting non-Pint Compliant Code in Git

A git pre-commit hook can be used to reject any PHP code is not compliant with Pint.

Note that Pint does not support blade templates at this time.

Setting up the git hooks directory in the project root directory is useful as it makes it available for every member of the project team. This provides a consistent environment and behavior for everyone which is great.

1. Setup a new .githooks folder and copy the pre-commit bash script for customization.

mkdir .githooks
cp .git/hooks/pre-commit.sample .githooks/pre-commit

2. Add the below lines to the top of the .githooks/pre-commit bash script.

# Ensure the committed files are Pint compliant.
echo "Running Laravel Pint..."
if ! ./vendor/bin/pint --dirty --test
then
    echo "Pint errors detected, git commit aborted."
    exit 1
fi

3. Change the git hooks directory from the default .git/hooks to .githooks by running git config core.hooksPath .githooks. To automate this for other developers, add the below JSON snippet to the composer.json / scripts / post-autoload-dump section. The post-autoload-dump scripts are executed whenever composer install or udpate commands is invoked. See Composer Scripts.

"scripts": {
        "post-autoload-dump": [
            "Illuminate\\Foundation\\ComposerScripts::postAutoloadDump",
            "@php artisan package:discover --ansi",
            "git config core.hooksPath .githooks"
        ],