Laravel Boost

Laravel Boost accelerates AI-assisted development by providing MCP servers, coding guidelines, and Agent Skills that help AI coding agents write high-quality Laravel code.

Introduction

Laravel Boost is a package that accelerates AI-assisted development by supplying the guidelines and Agent Skills that AI agents need to write high-quality Laravel code following the framework’s best practices.

Boost also provides a powerful Laravel ecosystem documentation API — a knowledge base containing over 17,000 Laravel-specific facts combined with semantic search via embeddings. Boost instructs AI agents such as Claude Code and Cursor to query this API to learn about the latest Laravel features and best practices.

Installation

Install Laravel Boost via Composer as a development dependency:

composer require laravel/boost --dev

Then install the MCP server and coding guidelines:

php artisan boost:install

The boost:install command generates relevant guidelines and skill files for the AI coding agent you select during installation.

After installation, you can start coding with Cursor, Claude Code, or your preferred AI agent.

The generated MCP configuration file (.mcp.json), guideline files (CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, junie/, etc.), and the boost.json configuration file may be added to your application’s .gitignore. These files are automatically regenerated when you run boost:install or boost:update.

Configuring your agent

Cursor

1. Open the Command Palette (Cmd+Shift+P or Ctrl+Shift+P)
2. Select Open MCP Settings and press Enter
3. Toggle laravel-boost on

Claude Code

Support for Claude Code is usually enabled automatically. If not, open a shell in your project directory and run:

claude mcp add -s local -t stdio laravel-boost php artisan boost:mcp

Codex

Support for Codex is usually enabled automatically. If not, open a shell in your project directory and run:

codex mcp add laravel-boost -- php "artisan" "boost:mcp"

Gemini CLI

Support for Gemini CLI is usually enabled automatically. If not, open a shell in your project directory and run:

gemini mcp add -s project -t stdio laravel-boost php artisan boost:mcp

GitHub Copilot (VS Code)

1. Open the Command Palette (Cmd+Shift+P or Ctrl+Shift+P)
2. Select MCP: List Servers and press Enter
3. Select laravel-boost and press Enter
4. Choose Start server

Junie

1. Press Shift twice to open the command palette
2. Search for MCP Settings and press Enter
3. Check the checkbox next to laravel-boost
4. Click Apply in the bottom right

Updating Boost resources

Keep your local Boost resources (AI guidelines and skills) up to date to reflect the latest versions of your installed Laravel ecosystem packages:

php artisan boost:update

You can automate this by adding it to the post-update-cmd script in composer.json:

{
  "scripts": {
    "post-update-cmd": [
      "@php artisan boost:update --ansi"
    ]
  }
}

By default, boost:update only refreshes Boost resources that have already been published. Use --discover to detect newly installed packages and offer to publish their guidelines and skills:

php artisan boost:update --discover

MCP server

Laravel Boost ships an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that exposes tools allowing AI agents to interact with your Laravel application — inspecting its structure, querying the database, and running code.

Available MCP tools

Tool	Description
Application Info	Reads PHP and Laravel versions, database engine, versioned ecosystem packages, and Eloquent models
Browser Logs	Reads logs and errors from the browser
Database Connections	Lists available database connections, including the default
Database Query	Executes a query against the database
Database Schema	Reads the database schema
Get Absolute URL	Converts a relative URI to an absolute URL so the agent can generate valid links
Last Error	Reads the last error from the application log file
Read Log Entries	Reads the last N log entries
Search Docs	Queries the Laravel hosted documentation API based on installed packages

Registering the MCP server manually

Some editors require you to register the MCP server manually. Use the following details:

Field	Value
Command	php
Args	artisan boost:mcp

JSON example:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "laravel-boost": {
            "command": "php",
            "args": ["artisan", "boost:mcp"]
        }
    }
}

AI guidelines

AI guidelines are instruction files that are preloaded to give AI agents important context about your Laravel ecosystem packages. They cover core conventions, best practices, and framework-specific patterns so agents consistently generate high-quality code.

Available guidelines

Boost includes AI guidelines for the following packages and frameworks. The core guideline provides general advice that applies regardless of version.

Package	Supported versions
Core & Boost	core
Laravel Framework	core, 10.x, 11.x, 12.x
Livewire	core, 2.x, 3.x, 4.x
Flux UI	core, free, pro
Folio	core
Herd	core
Inertia Laravel	core, 1.x, 2.x, 3.x
Inertia React	core, 1.x, 2.x, 3.x
Inertia Vue	core, 1.x, 2.x, 3.x
Inertia Svelte	core, 1.x, 2.x, 3.x
MCP	core
Pennant	core
Pest	core, 3.x, 4.x
PHPUnit	core
Pint	core
Sail	core
Tailwind CSS	core, 3.x, 4.x
Livewire Volt	core
Wayfinder	core
Enforce Tests	conditional

To keep AI guidelines current, see Updating Boost resources.

Adding custom guidelines

Add your own AI guidelines to Boost by placing .blade.php or .md files in the .ai/guidelines/* directory of your application. These files are merged with Boost’s built-in guidelines when you run boost:install.

Overriding Boost guidelines

Create a custom guideline at a path matching an existing Boost guideline to override it. When boost:install finds a matching path, it uses your custom version instead of the built-in one.

For example, to override the “Inertia React v2 Form Guidance” guideline, create a file at .ai/guidelines/inertia-react/2/forms.blade.php.

Guidelines for third-party packages

If you maintain a third-party package and want Boost to include AI guidelines for it, add a resources/boost/guidelines/core.blade.php file to your package. Boost will automatically discover and load the guideline when users run php artisan boost:install.

Guidelines should include a brief overview of the package, required file structures and conventions, and how to create or use the main features — with commands and code snippets. Keep them concise and action-oriented:

## Package Name

This package provides [brief description of functionality].

### Features

- Feature 1: [clear & short description].
- Feature 2: [clear & short description]. Example usage:

@verbatim
<code-snippet name="How to use Feature 2" lang="php">
$result = PackageName::featureTwo($param1, $param2);
</code-snippet>
@endverbatim

Agent Skills

Agent Skills are lightweight, focused knowledge modules that an agent can activate on demand when working in a specific domain. Unlike guidelines (which are always preloaded), skills are loaded only when relevant — keeping context lean and code quality high.

When you run boost:install and select Skills as a feature, Boost automatically installs the appropriate skills based on the packages detected in composer.json. For example, if your project includes livewire/livewire, the livewire-development skill is installed automatically.

Available skills

Skill	Package
fluxui-development	Flux UI
folio-routing	Folio
inertia-react-development	Inertia React
inertia-svelte-development	Inertia Svelte
inertia-vue-development	Inertia Vue
livewire-development	Livewire
mcp-development	MCP
pennant-development	Pennant
pest-testing	Pest
tailwindcss-development	Tailwind CSS
volt-development	Volt
wayfinder-development	Wayfinder

To keep skills current, see Updating Boost resources.

Creating custom skills

Add a SKILL.md file to .ai/skills/{skill-name}/ in your application. Running boost:update will install your custom skill alongside Boost’s built-in skills.

For example, to create a skill for application-specific invoice logic:

.ai/skills/creating-invoices/SKILL.md

Overriding built-in skills

Create a custom skill with the same name as a built-in Boost skill to override it. Boost will use your version instead of the default.

For example, to override the livewire-development skill, create .ai/skills/livewire-development/SKILL.md.

Skills for third-party packages

If you maintain a third-party package, add resources/boost/skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md to your package. Boost will offer to install the skill when users run php artisan boost:install.

Skills follow the Agent Skills format — a folder containing a SKILL.md file with required YAML frontmatter (name and description) and Markdown instructions:

---
name: package-name-development
description: Build and work with PackageName features, including components and workflows.
---

# Package Name Development

## When to use this skill
Use this skill when working with PackageName features...

## Features

- Feature 1: [clear & short description].
- Feature 2: example usage:

$result = PackageName::featureTwo($param1, $param2);

Guidelines vs Skills

Boost gives you two ways to provide context to AI agents:

	Guidelines	Skills
Loaded	Always, at startup	On demand, when relevant
Scope	Broad, foundational	Focused, task-specific
Purpose	Core conventions and best practices	Detailed implementation patterns

Documentation API

Boost’s documentation API gives AI agents access to a knowledge base of over 17,000 Laravel-specific facts. It uses semantic search with embeddings to return accurate, context-aware results.

The Search Docs MCP tool lets agents query the Laravel hosted documentation API based on your installed packages. Boost’s AI guidelines and skills automatically instruct agents to use this API.

Package	Supported versions
Laravel Framework	10.x, 11.x, 12.x
Filament	2.x, 3.x, 4.x, 5.x
Flux UI	2.x Free, 2.x Pro
Inertia	1.x, 2.x
Livewire	1.x, 2.x, 3.x, 4.x
Nova	4.x, 5.x
Pest	3.x, 4.x
Tailwind CSS	3.x, 4.x

Extending Boost

Boost works out of the box with many popular IDEs and AI agents. If your coding tool is not yet supported, you can create a custom agent integration.

Adding support for another IDE or agent

Create a class that extends Laravel\Boost\Install\Agents\Agent and implement one or more of the following contracts:

• Laravel\Boost\Contracts\SupportsGuidelines — add AI guideline support
• Laravel\Boost\Contracts\SupportsMcp — add MCP support
• Laravel\Boost\Contracts\SupportsSkills — add Agent Skills support

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

namespace App;

use Laravel\Boost\Contracts\SupportsGuidelines;
use Laravel\Boost\Contracts\SupportsMcp;
use Laravel\Boost\Contracts\SupportsSkills;
use Laravel\Boost\Install\Agents\Agent;

class CustomAgent extends Agent implements SupportsGuidelines, SupportsMcp, SupportsSkills
{
    // Your implementation...
}

See ClaudeCode.php for a reference implementation.

Registering your agent

Register the custom agent in the boot method of App\Providers\AppServiceProvider:

use Laravel\Boost\Boost;

public function boot(): void
{
    Boost::registerAgent('customagent', CustomAgent::class);
}

Once registered, the agent appears as an option when running php artisan boost:install.