README

A streamlined Laravel starter kit for building applications with custom artisan commands.

This starter kit accelerates the development of Laravel applications that primarily use artisan commands for their functionality. Instead of building standalone CLI tools, you create powerful Laravel console applications that leverage the full Laravel framework ecosystem - including dependency injection, notifications, scheduling, and testing tools. Perfect for building scheduled tasks, data processing workflows, monitoring scripts, and automated maintenance tools that benefit from Laravel's robust architecture without the web application overhead.

Note: If you would like to create a console only project based on the latest official Laravel skeleton, you can also use the laravel-slim package.

Key Features

Focus on Console Applications: Streamlined for building Laravel applications with artisan commands, removing web-specific overhead.
Artisan Command Ready: Quickly generate and organize your console commands using php artisan make:command.
Scheduled Tasks with GitHub Actions: Includes a pre-configured example (.github/workflows/cron.yml) for running your commands on a schedule using GitHub Actions.
Laravel Framework Power: Leverage familiar Laravel features like its robust dependency injection container, event system, configuration management, and application testing tools for your console applications.

Requirements

PHP ^8.2
Laravel Framework ^12.0
Laravel Installer ^5.14

Installation

laravel new my-app --using=revolution/laravel-console-starter --no-interaction

Usage

Make a new command

php artisan make:command Hello --command=hello

This will create a new command class in app/Console/Commands/Hello.php. The --command=hello option sets the invokable name of your command, so you can run it later using php artisan hello.

Task Scheduling in GitHub Actions

cron.yml is an example of how to run the command in GitHub Actions. This workflow file demonstrates how to set up a cron-like schedule to execute your Artisan commands automatically. You'll need to customize it with the specific commands you want to run and their desired frequency. Remember to configure repository secrets for any sensitive information your commands might need (e.g., API keys, database credentials).

Database

While console applications may not frequently use local databases, it's common to utilize remote databases like AWS RDS when running them in GitHub Actions. Database connection settings should be configured using secrets.

Example of environment variable configuration in a workflow:

      - name: Run Command
        run: php artisan inspire
        env:
          APP_KEY: ${{ secrets.APP_KEY }}
          DB_HOST: ${{ secrets.DB_HOST }}
          DB_DATABASE: ${{ secrets.DB_DATABASE }}
          DB_USERNAME: ${{ secrets.DB_USERNAME }}
          DB_PASSWORD: ${{ secrets.DB_PASSWORD }}

Notifications

Laravel's built-in notification system provides a convenient way to send notifications from your console commands. This is particularly useful for:

Alerting you when a long-running task completes.
Reporting errors or issues encountered during command execution.
Sending updates or summaries to email, Slack, or other chat platforms.

To use this feature, you'll typically create a notification class (e.g., using php artisan make:notification TaskCompleted) and then send it using the Notification facade. You will need to configure your desired notification channels (like mail, Slack, etc.) in your Laravel application. When configuring notification channels, especially those relying on external services or specific mail drivers, you may need to publish the relevant configuration files if they don't already exist in your config directory. You can do this using the following Artisan commands:

php artisan config:publish mail
php artisan config:publish services

The config/mail.php file allows you to configure your mailer settings, while config/services.php is used to store credentials and settings for various third-party services that Laravel can integrate with for notifications (e.g., Slack, Vonage). For detailed setup and usage, please refer to the official Laravel Notification documentation.

Application Ideas

Here are some ideas for applications that can be built using this starter kit:

Monitoring and Analytics

Website uptime monitoring with Slack alerts
Server resource usage reports via email
SSL certificate expiration checks and email notifications
Competitor price change tracking with Discord notifications
API response time monitoring and alerts
Database size growth reports
Website performance score (Lighthouse) periodic checks

Finance and Business

Send Google AdSense revenue via email
Notify AWS costs to Discord
Daily cryptocurrency portfolio updates to Discord
Stock price alerts to Slack channels
Invoice payment deadline reminders
Monthly expense report generation and delivery
Subscription renewal alerts

Data Processing and Reports

Database backup and completion status notifications
Old log file cleanup and storage space reports
Data synchronization between different APIs with result reports
CSV data import and processing result notifications
Database integrity checks and issue reports
Cache cleanup and optimization reports
Periodic data exports and uploads to cloud storage

Content and Marketing

Website broken link checks and reports
SEO keyword ranking monitoring and change notifications
Social media follower count change reports
Blog post performance metrics weekly reports
Content publication schedule reminders
RSS feed content aggregation and notifications
Email marketing campaign result reports

Development and DevOps

GitHub repository dependency security alerts
Codebase static analysis reports
Test coverage report generation and notifications
Post-deployment application health checks
Unused cloud resource detection and notifications
API documentation change detection and notifications
Codebase TODO comment aggregation and reminders

Personal Productivity

Daily morning weather forecast notifications
Calendar event daily summaries
Habit tracking and reminders
Subscription service renewal date notifications
Important dates and anniversary reminders
Regular backup reminders
Health data aggregation and trend reports

Additional Ideas

Domain expiration monitoring and alerts
Suspicious access pattern detection from server logs
Unusual financial transaction detection reports
Automated OCR processing and results summary
Google Trends keyword monitoring and notifications
YouTube channel performance data aggregation
CI/CD failure trend analysis
Laravel package update detection alerts
Personal spending category insights and visual reports
Daily journal sentiment analysis and summaries

Documentation

For detailed usage instructions and examples, please refer to our comprehensive tutorials:

LICENSE

MIT

revolution / laravel-console-starter

Maintainers

Details