50 Laravel Tips from Laravel Live UK 2026

Liam Hammett (Senior Tech Lead, Geological) gave a "50 Laravel Tips" talk at Laravel Live UK 2026, a trimmed version of the "101 Tips" talk he gave at the Dutch PHP Conference in March 2026. The slides are publicly available.

AppServiceProvider settings

A significant chunk of the talk covered useful things to register in AppServiceProvider. These are easy wins that improve safety, consistency, and developer experience across an app.

class AppServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
    public function boot()
    {
        // Use immutable Carbon dates to prevent mutation bugs
        Date::use(CarbonImmutable::class);

        // Block destructive DB commands in production
        DB::prohibitDestructiveCommands(app()->isProduction());

        // Enforce strong passwords in production, relaxed locally
        Password::defaults(fn (): ?Password => app()->isProduction()
            ? Password::min(12)
                ->mixedCase()
                ->letters()
                ->numbers()
                ->symbols()
                ->uncompromised()
            : null,
        );

        // Force HTTPS in production
        URL::forceHttps(app()->isProduction());

        // Strict Eloquent mode (covers the three below in one call)
        Model::shouldBeStrict();

        // Or individually:
        Model::preventLazyLoading();
        Model::preventSilentlyDiscardingAttributes();
        Model::preventAccessingMissingAttributes();

        // Auto eager load relationships where possible
        Model::automaticallyEagerLoadRelationships();

        // Aggressive Vite prefetching
        Vite::useAggressivePrefetching();
    }
}

Date::use(CarbonImmutable::class) prevents a common mutation bug where calling addDays() on a Carbon instance modifies the original variable rather than returning a new one.

Model::shouldBeStrict() is a shorthand that enables all three strict model behaviours at once: no lazy loading, no silently discarded attributes, no access to missing attributes.

Password::defaults() lets you define password rules once and reference them anywhere with Password::defaults(). The same rules can be passed to an HTML passwordrules attribute via Password::defaults()->toPasswordRulesString().

Bladestan - static analysis for Blade templates

Bladestan is a PHPStan extension by Tomas Votruba that runs static analysis inside Blade templates. Install it alongside Larastan and include its config in phpstan.neon.

composer require tomasvotruba/bladestan --dev

includes:
    - vendor/larastan/larastan/extension.neon
    - vendor/nesbot/carbon/extension.neon
    - vendor/tomasvotruba/bladestan/config/extension.neon

parameters:
    paths:
        - app/
        - bootstrap/
        - config/
        - database/
        - resources/views/
        - routes/
    level: 7
    checkModelProperties: true
    checkConfigTypes: true
    checkOctaneCompatibility: true

Liam also covered a broader static analysis stack: Larastan for PHP, Bladestan for Blade views, Rector for automated refactoring and code quality enforcement, and Laravel Pint for formatting.

// rector.php
RectorConfig::configure()
    ->withPaths([__DIR__ . '/app', ...])
    ->withPhpSets()
    ->withPreparedSets(
        deadCode: true,
        codeQuality: true,
        typeDeclarations: true,
        privatization: true,
        earlyReturn: true,
        strictBooleans: true,
    );

composer require driftingly/rector-laravel --dev

These can be combined into a single composer lint script and run in CI via GitHub Actions.

References:

FilamentServiceProvider

Filament global defaults for tables, selects, columns, date pickers and notifications should be stripped out of individual resources and centralised in a dedicated FilamentServiceProvider. This removes repeated configuration across every resource.

class FilamentServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
    public function boot(): void
    {
        Table::configureUsing(fn (Table $table): Table => $table
            ->striped()
            ->deferLoading()
            ->reorderableColumns()
            ->paginationPageOptions([10, 25, 50, 100])
            ->filtersTriggerAction(fn (Action $action): Action => $action
                ->button()->label('Filters')->slideOver()
            )
        );

        Select::configureUsing(fn (Select $field): Select => $field
            ->searchable()
            ->preload()
        );

        DatePicker::configureUsing(fn (DatePicker $datePicker): DatePicker => $datePicker
            ->minDate(Date::createFromDate(1500, 1, 1))
            ->maxDate(now()->addYears(30))
        );

        TextColumn::configureUsing(fn (TextColumn $textColumn): TextColumn => $textColumn
            ->searchable()
            ->sortable()
        );

        Notification::configureUsing(fn (Notification $notification): Notification => $notification
            ->duration(10_000)
        );
    }
}

AppServiceProvider settings

Bladestan - static analysis for Blade templates

FilamentServiceProvider

Other tips from the slides worth noting