Laravel Devtoolbox

[!TIP] What Laravel Devtoolbox does for you — One artisan toolbox to scan, inspect and debug your Laravel app: unused routes, model relationships, container bindings, env drift, SQL traces — plus an MCP server so your AI coding agent can use the same tools.

This package is free and maintained on my own time. If it saves you hours, a small contribution helps me keep it going: 💖 GitHub Sponsors · ☕ Buy Me a Coffee · PayPal

Swiss-army artisan CLI for Laravel — Scan, inspect, debug, and explore every aspect of your Laravel application from the command line.

✨ Features

Laravel Devtoolbox provides comprehensive analysis tools for Laravel applications:

• 🔎 Deep Application Scanning - Complete analysis of models, routes, services, and more
• 🧠 Model Introspection - Analyze Eloquent models, relationships, and usage patterns
• 🛣️ Route Analysis - Inspect routes, detect unused ones, and analyze middleware
• 📦 Service Container Analysis - Examine bindings, singletons, and providers
• ⚙️ Environment Auditing - Compare configuration files and detect inconsistencies
• 🔄 SQL Query Tracing - Monitor and analyze database queries for specific routes
• 📊 Multiple Export Formats - JSON, Markdown, Mermaid diagrams, and more
• 🛠 Developer Experience - Rich console output with actionable insights
• 🤖 MCP Server - Expose every scanner as a tool for AI coding agents (optional, via laravel/mcp)

📦 Installation

Install via Composer as a development dependency:

composer require --dev grazulex/laravel-devtoolbox

Requirements:

• PHP 8.3+
• Laravel 12.0+ | 13.0+

🚀 Quick Start

# See all available commands
php artisan list dev:

# Enhanced application overview (new!)
php artisan dev:about+ --extended --performance

# Quick health check of your application
php artisan dev:scan --all

# Find where a model is used
php artisan dev:model:where-used App\Models\User

# Detect unused routes
php artisan dev:routes:unused

# Find routes by controller (reverse lookup - new!)
php artisan dev:routes:where UserController

# Generate model relationship diagram
php artisan dev:model:graph --format=mermaid --output=models.mmd

# Trace SQL queries for a route
php artisan dev:sql:trace --route=dashboard

# Analyze SQL queries for N+1 problems (new!)
php artisan dev:sql:duplicates --route=users.index --threshold=3

# Monitor logs in real-time (new!)
php artisan dev:log:tail --follow --level=error

# Compare environment files
php artisan dev:env:diff --against=.env.example

# Analyze database column usage
php artisan dev:db:column-usage --unused-only

# Security scan for unprotected routes
php artisan dev:security:unprotected-routes --critical-only

# Analyze container bindings (new!)
php artisan dev:container:bindings --show-resolved

# Service provider performance analysis (new!)
php artisan dev:providers:timeline --slow-threshold=100

# Performance monitoring (new!)
php artisan dev:performance:memory --route=dashboard
php artisan dev:performance:slow-queries --threshold=1000
php artisan dev:cache:analysis --drivers=redis,file
php artisan dev:queue:analysis --failed-jobs --slow-jobs

🔍 Available Commands

General Scanning & Analysis

• dev:scan - Comprehensive application analysis with multiple scanner types
• dev:about+ - Enhanced version of Laravel's about command with extended information

Model Analysis

• dev:models - List and analyze all Eloquent models
• dev:model:where-used - Find where specific models are used
• dev:model:graph - Generate model relationship diagrams

Route Analysis

• dev:routes - Inspect application routes
• dev:routes:unused - Detect potentially unused routes
• dev:routes:where - Find routes by controller/method (reverse lookup)

Database Analysis

• dev:db:column-usage - Analyze database column usage across the Laravel application codebase
• dev:sql:trace - Trace SQL queries for specific routes
• dev:sql:duplicates - Analyze SQL queries for N+1 problems, duplicates, and performance issues

Security Analysis

• dev:security:unprotected-routes - Scan for routes that are not protected by authentication middleware

Service & Container Analysis

• dev:services - Examine service container bindings
• dev:container:bindings - Analyze container bindings, singletons, and dependency injection mappings
• dev:providers:timeline - Analyze service provider boot timeline and performance
• dev:commands - List and analyze artisan commands

Middleware Analysis

• dev:middleware - Analyze middleware classes and usage
• dev:middlewares:where-used - Find where specific middleware is used

View Analysis

• dev:views - Scan Blade templates and views

Environment & Logging

• dev:env:diff - Compare environment configuration files
• dev:log:tail - Monitor Laravel logs with real-time filtering and pattern matching

Performance Analysis (new!)

• dev:performance:memory - Analyze memory usage patterns and performance
• dev:performance:slow-queries - Detect and analyze slow database queries
• dev:cache:analysis - Analyze cache performance and configuration
• dev:queue:analysis - Analyze queue performance, failed jobs, and job patterns

🤖 MCP Server (AI agents)

Laravel Devtoolbox can run as a local MCP server, exposing every scanner listed above as a typed tool that AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.) can call directly, without shelling out to Artisan and parsing text output.

Installation

The server is built on laravel/mcp, an optional dependency — the package works exactly as before if it isn't installed:

composer require laravel/mcp --dev

Installing laravel/mcp requires laravel/framework 12.41.1 or later (or 13.x); on an older 12.x release, update the framework first.

Registration

Register the server with Claude Code:

claude mcp add devtoolbox php artisan mcp:start devtoolbox

Or point any MCP-compatible client at it with a generic .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "devtoolbox": { "command": "php", "args": ["artisan", "mcp:start", "devtoolbox"] }
  }
}

Available tools

Each scanner is exposed as devtoolbox-<name>. Most tools only read application metadata (routes, models, config, source); the three marked (active) actually execute code — internal HTTP requests or real queries — while scanning:

• devtoolbox-models - Scan Laravel Eloquent models and their relationships
• devtoolbox-routes - Scan Laravel routes and analyze their usage
• devtoolbox-route-where-lookup - Find routes that use a specific controller or method
• devtoolbox-container-bindings - Analyze container bindings, singletons, and dependency injection mappings
• devtoolbox-middleware-usage - Analyze middleware usage across routes, controllers, and groups
• devtoolbox-sql-analysis (active) - Analyze SQL queries for N+1 problems, duplicates, and performance issues
• devtoolbox-provider-timeline - Analyze service provider boot timeline and performance
• devtoolbox-commands - Scan Laravel Artisan commands
• devtoolbox-services - Scan Laravel service container bindings
• devtoolbox-middleware - Scan Laravel middleware and their usage
• devtoolbox-views - Scan Laravel views and detect unused ones
• devtoolbox-model-usage - Scan for usage of a specific model throughout the application
• devtoolbox-sql-trace (active) - Trace SQL queries executed during route or URL execution
• devtoolbox-security - Scan for security vulnerabilities and unprotected routes
• devtoolbox-db-column-usage - Analyze database column usage across the application codebase
• devtoolbox-performance (active) - Analyze memory usage, query performance, and cache efficiency

Environment guard

The server only registers itself in local and testing by default — it is never exposed in staging or production. This is controlled by config/devtoolbox.php:

'mcp' => [
    'enabled' => env('DEVTOOLBOX_MCP_ENABLED', true),
    'environments' => ['local', 'testing'],
    'max_response_bytes' => 262_144,
],

• devtoolbox.mcp.environments — the list of app()->environment() values allowed to register the server.
• DEVTOOLBOX_MCP_ENABLED — a hard off switch, checked in addition to the environment list.

Response truncation

Large scan results are capped at devtoolbox.mcp.max_response_bytes (262 KB by default) so they stay usable in an agent's context window. When a result is truncated, the response includes a _truncated key with the original item count, how many were kept, and a hint on which options to pass to narrow the scan.

Laravel Boost

Devtoolbox ships Laravel Boost guidelines and a devtoolbox-analysis skill describing when to reach for each MCP tool (unprotected/unused routes, N+1 queries, model impact, slow providers, and more). Both are installed automatically by:

php artisan boost:install

📊 Export Formats

All commands support multiple output formats:

Save to Files

# Export to JSON
php artisan dev:models --format=json --output=models.json

# Generate Mermaid diagram
php artisan dev:model:graph --format=mermaid --output=relationships.mmd

# Save comprehensive scan
php artisan dev:scan --all --format=json --output=app-analysis.json

🛠 Configuration

Publish the configuration file to customize behavior:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=devtoolbox-config

This creates config/devtoolbox.php where you can customize:

• Default output formats
• Scanner-specific options
• Performance settings
• Export configurations

📚 Documentation

Comprehensive documentation and examples are available in our GitHub Wiki:

• Getting Started - Quick start guide
• Commands Reference - Detailed command documentation
• Configuration - Configuration options
• Examples & Use Cases - Practical usage examples
• CI/CD Integration - Automation workflows
• Output Formats - Export format examples

🔧 Examples & Automation

Daily Development Workflow

# Check application health
php artisan dev:scan --all --format=count

# Find cleanup opportunities
php artisan dev:routes:unused
php artisan dev:env:diff

CI/CD Integration

# Quality gates in CI
UNUSED_ROUTES=$(php artisan dev:routes:unused --format=count | jq '.count')
if [ $UNUSED_ROUTES -gt 10 ]; then
  echo "Too many unused routes: $UNUSED_ROUTES"
  exit 1
fi

Documentation Generation

# Generate project documentation
php artisan dev:models --format=json --output=docs/models.json
php artisan dev:model:graph --format=mermaid --output=docs/relationships.mmd
php artisan dev:routes --format=json --output=docs/routes.json

For complete automation scripts and CI/CD configurations, visit our Wiki Examples.

🔍 Use Cases

• 🔍 Code Reviews - Generate comprehensive application overviews
• 📊 Performance Analysis - Identify slow queries and bottlenecks
• 🧹 Technical Debt - Find unused routes, orphaned models, and inconsistencies
• 📖 Documentation - Auto-generate up-to-date application structure docs
• ⚡ CI/CD Quality Gates - Automated quality checks and thresholds
• 🎯 Onboarding - Help new team members understand application structure

🆕 Version Compatibility

Note: Since v1.6.0 this package supports Laravel 12 and Laravel 13. Laravel 11 (end of life) is no longer supported; use v1.5.x if you are still on Laravel 11.

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please see our Contributing Guide for details.

📄 License

Laravel Devtoolbox is open-sourced software licensed under the MIT license.

💼 Need Expert Laravel Help?

Laravel DevToolbox is maintained by Jean-Marc Strauven, creator of 17+ Laravel packages with 6,000+ downloads.

🎯 Available for:

🏗️ Custom Laravel Development Build your application from scratch or extend existing systems with clean, maintainable code.

🔍 Code Audits & Architecture Review Deep analysis of your Laravel projects with detailed recommendations and refactoring roadmap.

• Complete codebase analysis
• Architecture documentation
• Performance bottleneck identification
• Security audit
• Duration: 2-3 days | Investment: €2,500

⚡ Performance Optimization Scale your Laravel application to handle millions of requests with confidence.

• Database query optimization
• Caching strategies
• Queue optimization
• Load testing and monitoring

📦 Custom Package Development Build tailored Laravel packages for your specific business needs.

• Internal tools and libraries
• API integrations
• Third-party service wrappers
• Investment: €5,000-€10,000

👨‍🏫 Team Training & Consulting Level up your team's Laravel skills with hands-on workshops and mentoring.

• Laravel best practices
• Clean architecture principles
• Testing strategies
• €1,500/day for team workshops

👨‍💻 Experience:

• 15+ years Laravel/PHP expertise
• Ex-CTO at Delcampe (marketplace with millions of users)
• Chapter Lead at BNP Paribas Fortis
• Creator of popular packages: DevToolbox, Atlas, ShareLink, Draftable

📬 Get in Touch:

• 📧 Email: jms@grazulex.be
• 💼 LinkedIn: Jean-Marc Strauven
• 🌐 Website: jnkconsult.be
• 💻 Malt Profile: Available for freelance projects

💡 Working on a complex Laravel project? Let's discuss how I can help you build better, faster, and more maintainable applications.

⭐ Support This Package

If Laravel DevToolbox saved you time and improved your workflow:

• ⭐ Star this repository — Help others discover it
• 🐦 Share it with your team and network
• 💖 Sponsor my work — Support continued development

Every star and sponsor helps me dedicate more time to maintaining and improving these tools for the Laravel community!

Created with ❤️ in Belgium 🇧🇪 by Jean-Marc Strauven