Requirements

• PHP 8.2+, with these extensions: BCMath, Ctype, cURL, DOM, Fileinfo, Filter, Hash, Mbstring, OpenSSL, PCRE, PDO, Session, Tokenizer, XML — the standard set Laravel 12 needs. If you’re using the default SQLite database (see below), you’ll also need the pdo_sqlite and sqlite3 extensions specifically.
• Composer 2
• Node.js 18+ and npm, to build the frontend assets (Vite + Tailwind)
• A database: SQLite is the default and requires no separate server — composer setup works out of the box with it. MySQL and PostgreSQL are also supported (see config/database.php) if you’d rather point DB_CONNECTION at an existing server.

If composer setup fails partway through, it’s almost always a missing PHP extension — check the error output for which one, install it, and re-run the command.

Local Development Setup:

1. Create environment file: cp .env.example .env
2. Run the all-in-one setup command: composer setup
   • This installs PHP and JS dependencies, generates an app key, runs migrations, and builds frontend assets.
3. Create your first user: php artisan user:create admin@example.com "Admin User" password123
4. Start the dev server: php artisan serve

Alternative Docker Setup:

1. Create environment file: cp .env.example .env
2. Edit .env and set APP_KEY, APP_ENV=production, APP_DEBUG=false
3. Build and start containers: docker compose up -d --build (or docker-compose for Docker V1)
4. Run migrations and create first user:
   • docker compose exec app php artisan migrate --force
   • docker compose exec app php artisan user:create admin@example.com "Admin User" password123