README

Agent-optimized output for Laravel Artisan commands. Detects AI coding agents and replaces verbose, decorated output with clean text or structured JSON.

The Problem

AI coding agents waste tokens on Artisan's decorative output — ANSI colors, box-drawing tables, progress bars, Unicode symbols. None of this is useful to an LLM.

Before (444 tokens):

 ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
 │                    Application                        │
 ├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
 │ Application Name ····················· Laravel        │
 │ Laravel Version ······················ 13.2.0         │
 │ PHP Version ·························· 8.4.19         │
 │ Environment ·························· local          │
 │ Debug Mode ··························· ENABLED        │
 └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

After (38 tokens):

{"environment":{"application_name":"Laravel","laravel_version":"13.2.0","php_version":"8.4.19","environment":"local","debug_mode":true}}

Installation

composer require skylence/laravel-artisan-agent-output

Zero config. The package auto-discovers its service provider and activates only when an AI agent is detected (Claude Code, Cursor, Devin, Gemini CLI, etc.). Humans see normal output.

How It Works

Layer 1: Cleaned Text (all commands)

Strips ANSI colors, box-drawing characters, decorative Unicode, and excess whitespace from all Artisan output. Works with every command automatically.

Layer 2: Structured JSON (10 core commands)

For commands with registered parsers, the cleaned text is suppressed entirely and replaced with compact structured JSON. Ships with parsers for 10 core Laravel commands.

Supported Commands

Command	JSON Output
`about`	App name, versions, environment, debug, drivers
`migrate:status`	Migrations with name, status, batch number
`route:list`	Routes with method, URI, name, action, middleware, domain, constraints, exclusions
`db:show`	Connection info, tables with sizes
`db:table`	Columns with types, indexes, foreign keys
`schedule:list`	Scheduled tasks with cron expression, next run time
`model:show`	Attributes, relations, casts, events, observers
`queue:failed`	Failed jobs with ID, connection, queue, exception
`event:list`	Events with registered listeners
`config:show`	Configuration key-value pairs

All other commands get cleaned text output (Layer 1).

JSON Output Examples

`php artisan migrate:status`

{
  "total": 96,
  "ran": 96,
  "pending": 0,
  "migrations": [
    {"name": "0001_01_01_000000_create_users_table", "status": "ran", "batch": 1},
    {"name": "0001_01_01_000001_create_cache_table", "status": "ran", "batch": 1}
  ]
}

`php artisan route:list`

{
  "total": 402,
  "routes": [
    {
      "method": "GET|HEAD",
      "uri": "dashboard/team/settings",
      "name": "dashboard.team.settings.index",
      "action": "Closure",
      "middleware": ["web", "LogRequests", "EnsureTeamAccess", "CheckApiToken"]
    },
    {
      "method": "GET|HEAD",
      "uri": "tenant/dashboard",
      "name": "tenant.dashboard",
      "action": "Closure",
      "middleware": ["web"],
      "domain": "{tenant}.example.com"
    },
    {
      "method": "GET|HEAD",
      "uri": "admin/reports/{type}",
      "name": "admin.reports.show",
      "action": "Closure",
      "middleware": ["web"],
      "wheres": {"type": "sales|inventory|finance"}
    },
    {
      "method": "GET|HEAD",
      "uri": "light",
      "name": "light",
      "action": "Closure",
      "middleware": ["web", "LogRequests"],
      "without_middleware": ["CheckApiToken", "EnsureTeamAccess"]
    }
  ]
}

Route entries include domain, wheres, and without_middleware only when present.

`php artisan schedule:list`

{
  "total": 14,
  "tasks": [
    {"command": "backup:run --only-db", "expression": "0 1 * * *", "description": "", "next_run": "2026-04-10 01:00:00"},
    {"command": "exact:refresh-tokens", "expression": "*/5 * * * *", "description": "exact:refresh-tokens", "next_run": "2026-04-09 13:40:00"}
  ]
}

`php artisan about`

{
  "environment": {
    "application_name": "Laravel",
    "laravel_version": "13.2.0",
    "php_version": "8.4.19",
    "environment": "local",
    "debug_mode": true,
    "url": "myapp.test",
    "timezone": "Europe/Brussels",
    "locale": "en"
  },
  "cache": {"config": false, "events": false, "routes": false, "views": false},
  "drivers": {"broadcasting": "log", "cache": "redis", "database": "pgsql", "queue": "redis", "session": "redis"}
}

Configuration

Publish the config file:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=artisan-agent-output-config

return [
    // Set to false to disable JSON parsers (cleaned text only for all commands)
    'json' => true,

    // Commands to exclude from JSON parsing (will still get cleaned text)
    'exclude' => [],
];

Registering Custom Parsers

Third-party packages can register their own JSON parsers:

use Skylence\ArtisanAgentOutput\Facades\AgentOutput;

// In your service provider's boot() method:
AgentOutput::register('horizon:status', HorizonStatusParser::class);

Implement the CommandParser interface:

use Illuminate\Contracts\Foundation\Application;
use Skylence\ArtisanAgentOutput\Contracts\CommandParser;

class HorizonStatusParser implements CommandParser
{
    public function parse(Application $app): array
    {
        $horizon = $app->make('horizon');

        return [
            'status' => $horizon->status(),
            'processes' => $horizon->processCount(),
        ];
    }
}

Parsers should query Laravel services directly from the container rather than parsing text output.

Kill Switch

Set the AGENT_OUTPUT_DISABLE environment variable to bypass all processing:

AGENT_OUTPUT_DISABLE=1 php artisan about

How It Complements Other Tools

Tool	What it does	How it relates
PAO	Optimizes PHPUnit/Pest/PHPStan output for agents	PAO handles test runners, this package handles Artisan
Laravel Boost	MCP server helping agents discover commands	Boost helps agents know what to run, this cleans what comes back

Requirements

PHP 8.3+
Laravel 12 or 13

License

MIT

skylence / laravel-artisan-agent-output

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