Setup Laravel 12 Project: 7 Easy Steps for Beginners | 202515 min read

Welcome, aspiring web developer! Are you excited to build dynamic, modern web applications? If so, you’ve likely heard of Laravel. It’s one of the most popular and beloved PHP frameworks out there, known for its elegant syntax, robust features, and a fantastic developer experience. And guess what? Setting up your first Laravel project, specifically the latest and greatest Laravel 12, is a straightforward process, even if you’re brand new to this.

In this ultimate beginner’s guide, we’re going to walk through every single step needed to get your Setup Laravel 12 Project up and running. We’ll break down the technical jargon and make sure you understand what’s happening at each stage. By the end of this guide, you’ll have a functional Laravel 12 application ready for you to start building amazing things.

Let’s get started on this exciting journey to Setup Laravel 12 Project!

1. Why Choose Laravel 12?

Before we dive into the “how,” let’s quickly touch upon the “why.” Why is Laravel such a popular choice, and what makes Laravel 12 exciting?

Laravel provides a structured way to build web applications using the PHP programming language. Instead of writing everything from scratch (authentication, routing, database interactions, etc.), Laravel gives you pre-built components and tools that handle these common tasks, allowing you to focus on the unique aspects of your application. This speeds up development significantly and encourages writing cleaner, more maintainable code.

Laravel 12 continues to build upon the framework’s strengths, offering performance improvements, new features, and a refined developer experience. By learning to Setup Laravel 12 Project, you’re starting with the latest best practices and tools available in the Laravel ecosystem.

2. Essential Prerequisites: What You Need Before You Start to Setup Laravel 12 Project

Think of these as the tools in your toolbox that you need before you can start building. Don’t worry if you don’t have them all yet; we’ll briefly cover how to get them.

PHP: The Foundation (Setup Laravel 12 Project)

Laravel is built on PHP, so you absolutely need PHP installed on your system. Laravel 12 specifically requires PHP version 8.2 or higher. Make sure your PHP installation meets this requirement.

Composer: PHP’s Package Manager

Composer is an essential tool for modern PHP development. It’s a dependency manager, which means it helps you install and manage libraries and packages that your PHP projects (like Laravel) rely on. Laravel itself is installed and managed using Composer.

Node.js & npm: For Frontend Assets

While Laravel is primarily a backend framework, it often works hand-in-hand with frontend tools. Node.js is a JavaScript runtime, and npm (Node Package Manager) is used to manage frontend dependencies like CSS preprocessors (Sass, Less), JavaScript frameworks (React, Vue, etc.), and build tools. Laravel uses npm to manage these frontend assets.

A Database: Storing Your Data (Setup Laravel 12 Project)

Most web applications need to store data. Laravel works seamlessly with various database systems, including:

• MySQL
• PostgreSQL
• SQLite
• SQL Server

You’ll need one of these installed and running to connect your Laravel application to it. MySQL is a very common choice and is relatively easy to set up.

A Code Editor: Your Development Workspace (Setup Laravel 12 Project)

You’ll need a place to write your code. Any good text editor will work, but using a dedicated code editor or Integrated Development Environment (IDE) designed for programming will make your life much easier with features like syntax highlighting, code completion, and debugging. Popular choices include:

• VS Code (Visual Studio Code) – Free and highly recommended
• Sublime Text
• PHPStorm (Paid, but excellent for PHP development)
• Atom

Choose one that you feel comfortable with.

3. Step 1: Checking Your Prerequisites

Before we install anything new, let’s check if you already have PHP, Composer, and Node.js/npm installed and confirm their versions (Setup Laravel 12 Project).

Open your terminal or command prompt. You’ll be running commands here throughout the setup process.

To check your PHP version, run:

php -v

You should see output similar to this:

PHP 8.2.x (cli) (built: …)

Make sure the version is 8.2 or higher. If not, you’ll need to install or upgrade PHP. Consult the official PHP documentation for your operating system.

To check your Composer version, run:

composer --version

You should see something like:

Composer version 2.x.x ...

If Composer is installed, you’ll see its version.

To check your Node.js and npm versions, run:

node -v
npm -v

You should see version numbers for both.

If any of these commands fail or the versions are too old (especially PHP), you’ll need to install or update them before proceeding. The next two steps cover installing Composer and Node.js if you need them.

4. Step 2: Installing Composer (If You Don’t Have It)

If the composer --version command didn’t work in Step 1, you need to install Composer. The installation process varies slightly depending on your operating system.

The best place to get the most up-to-date installation instructions is the official Composer website:

• Official Composer Installation Guide: https://getcomposer.org/download/

Follow the instructions for your specific operating system (Windows, macOS, Linux). For most systems, it involves downloading a script and running it, or using a package manager.

Once installed, close and reopen your terminal or command prompt and run composer --version again to verify it’s working.

5. Step 3: Installing Node.js & npm (If You Don’t Have Them)

If the node -v or npm -v commands failed in Step 1, you need to install Node.js and npm. They are usually installed together.

The simplest way to install Node.js and npm is to download the official installer for your operating system from the Node.js website:

• Official Node.js Downloads: https://nodejs.org/en/download

Download and run the recommended LTS (Long-Term Support) version installer. This will install both Node.js and npm.

After installation, close and reopen your terminal or command prompt and run node -v and npm -v again to verify they are installed correctly.

6. Step 4: Creating Your New Laravel 12 Project

Now that you have the necessary tools, you can create your Laravel project. We’ll use Composer for this (Setup Laravel 12 Project).

Navigate in your terminal to the directory where you want to create your project. For example, if you have a Projects folder in your home directory, you might use:

cd ~/Projects

Now, run the following Composer command to create a new Laravel project. We’ll name our project example-app, but you can replace this with your desired project name. We also specify "12.*" to ensure we get the latest Laravel 12 version.

composer create-project laravel/laravel example-app "12.*"

Let’s break down this command:

• composer create-project: This is the Composer command to create a new project from a package.
• laravel/laravel: This is the Composer package name for the core Laravel framework.
• example-app: This is the name of the directory that will be created for your project. Replace example-app with whatever you want to name your project (e.g., my-blog, task-manager).
• "12.*": This specifies the version constraint. "12.*" tells Composer to install the latest version within the 12.x release series.

When you run this command, Composer will download all the necessary Laravel files and dependencies into the example-app directory. This might take a few minutes depending on your internet connection. You’ll see a lot of output in your terminal as Composer downloads and installs packages (Setup Laravel 12 Project).

Once the command finishes successfully, you will have a new directory named example-app (or whatever you named it) containing your brand new Laravel 12 project files!

Now, navigate into your new project directory:

cd example-app

You are now inside your Laravel project!

7. Step 5: Understanding and Configuring the .env File

One of the most important files in your Laravel project is the .env file located in the root directory of your project. This file contains environment-specific configuration variables, such as database credentials, mail server settings, and application keys. Keeping these settings in a .env file is a best practice because it allows you to easily change configuration based on the environment (development, staging, production) without changing your core application code (Setup Laravel 12 Project).

When you created the project, Laravel automatically generated a .env file (it’s copied from .env.example). Open this file in your code editor. It will look something like this:

APP_NAME=Laravel
APP_ENV=local
APP_KEY=base64:someRandomStringGoesHere=
APP_DEBUG=true
APP_URL=http://localhost

LOG_CHANNEL=stack
LOG_LEVEL=debug
LOG_DATE_FORMAT="Y-m-d H:i:s"

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=laravel
DB_USERNAME=root
DB_PASSWORD=

BROADCAST_DRIVER=log
CACHE_DRIVER=file
FILESYSTEM_DISK=local
QUEUE_CONNECTION=sync
SESSION_DRIVER=file
SESSION_LIFETIME=120

MEMCACHED_HOST=127.0.0.1

REDIS_HOST=127.0.0.1
REDIS_PASSWORD=null
REDIS_PORT=6379

VITE_APP_NAME="${APP_NAME}"
VITE_APP_URL="${APP_URL}"

Let’s look at some of the key variables you might need to change:

• APP_NAME: The name of your application (e.g., My Awesome Blog).
• APP_ENV: The current application environment (local, staging, production). For development on your computer, keep this as local.
• APP_KEY: This is crucial! It’s used by Laravel for encrypting cookies and other sensitive data. Laravel automatically generates this when you create the project, so you usually don’t need to change it. Never share your APP_KEY!
• APP_DEBUG: Controls whether debug information is displayed. Set to true in development (local environment) to see detailed error messages. Set to false in production for security.
• APP_URL: The URL of your application (e.g., http://localhost, https://myapp.com).

You’ll notice the DB_* variables. These are for configuring your database connection (Setup Laravel 12 Project).

8. Step 6: Setting Up Your Database Connection and Running Migrations

Now, let’s configure your database connection. In your .env file, find the DB_* variables:

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=laravel
DB_USERNAME=root
DB_PASSWORD=

You need to update these values to match your database setup.

• DB_CONNECTION: The type of database. Common options are mysql, pgsql, sqlite, sqlsrv.
• DB_HOST: The IP address or hostname of your database server. 127.0.0.1 (localhost) is standard if the database is on your computer.
• DB_PORT: The port your database is running on. Default for MySQL is 3306.
• DB_DATABASE: The name of the database you want to use for this application. You need to create this database manually before running migrations.
• DB_USERNAME: The username to connect to your database.
• DB_PASSWORD: The password for the database user.

Important: Before you can connect, you must create the database itself. Log in to your database server (using a tool like phpMyAdmin, MySQL Workbench, pgAdmin, or the command line) and create a new empty database with the name you specified in DB_DATABASE.

Once your .env file is configured with the correct database details and you have created the database, you can run Laravel’s database migrations. Migrations are like version control for your database. They define the database schema (tables, columns, etc.) in PHP code, allowing you to easily create and modify your database structure (Setup Laravel 12 Project).

Laravel comes with some default migrations for creating users and password reset tables. To run these, open your terminal in your project’s root directory (cd example-app) and run the Artisan command:

php artisan migrate

Artisan is Laravel’s command-line interface, and it provides many helpful commands. The migrate command will read the migration files in the database/migrations directory and create the corresponding tables in your configured database.

You should see output indicating that the tables are being created:

Migration table created successfully.
Migrating: 2014_10_12_000000_create_users_table
Migrated:  2014_10_12_000000_create_users_table (0.XX seconds)
Migrating: 2014_10_12_100000_create_password_reset_tokens_table
Migrated:  2014_10_12_100000_create_password_reset_tokens_table (0.XX seconds)...

If you see errors here, double-check your DB_* settings in the .env file and ensure the database exists and the user credentials are correct (Setup Laravel 12 Project).

9. Step 7: Serving Your Laravel Application

You’re almost there! The final step is to start Laravel’s local development server to view your application in a web browser. Laravel provides a simple command for this using Artisan.

In your terminal, still in the project root directory, run:

php artisan serve

This command starts a lightweight web server built into PHP, specifically configured to serve your Laravel application.

You will see output like this:

Starting Laravel development server: http://127.0.0.1:8000
Press Ctrl+C to stop the server.

This tells you that the development server is running and accessible at the URL http://127.0.0.1:8000. 127.0.0.1 is the standard address for “localhost” (your own computer), and 8000 is the default port number.

10. Accessing Your Application in the Browser

Open your favorite web browser and go to the address displayed in your terminal, which is usually:

http://127.0.0.1:8000

Congratulations! You should now see the default Laravel welcome page. This confirms that your Setup Laravel 12 Project was successful and your application is running!

You have successfully installed Laravel 12, configured your environment, set up your database, and served your application.

11. What’s Next? Your First Steps in Laravel Development

Seeing the welcome page is just the beginning. Now you can start building your application! Here are a few key areas you’ll explore next:

• Routing: Defining the URLs (routes) that users access and the code that handles those requests.
• Controllers: Classes that handle incoming requests, interact with models, and return responses (like displaying views).
• Views: The templates that define the HTML structure of your web pages. Laravel uses the Blade templating engine by default.
• Models & Eloquent ORM: Interacting with your database. Eloquent is Laravel’s powerful Object-Relational Mapper, making database operations easy and intuitive.

You can find detailed information on these topics and much more in the excellent
Official Laravel Documentation.

Learn more about Laravel Routing

12. Troubleshooting Common Setup Issues

Even with step-by-step guides, you might encounter issues. Here are a few common problems and their solutions when you Setup Laravel 12 Project:

• “PHP Fatal error: Composer\Autoload\ClassLoader::getPrefixesPsr4():…” or Class Not Found errors: This often means Composer didn’t finish installing correctly, or the autoloader cache is outdated. Try running composer install again in your project directory. If that doesn’t work, try clearing the Composer cache with composer clearcache and then composer install.
• “.env file not loaded or configuration values are wrong”: Ensure your .env file is named exactly .env and is in the project root. Sometimes, configuration caching can cause issues. Try running php artisan optimize:clear to clear various caches, including the configuration cache.
• Database connection errors (e.g., “Access denied for user…”, “Unknown database…”): Double-check your DB_* credentials in the .env file. Ensure the database user, password, host, port, and database name are all correct. Also, verify that the database itself exists and is running.
• Permissions errors: On macOS or Linux, you might encounter permission issues when Laravel tries to write to the storage or bootstrap/cache directories. You might need to give your web server user write permissions to these directories. Common commands (use with caution and understand what they do):

sudo chown -R $USER storage bootstrap/cache
sudo chmod -R 775 storage bootstrap/cache

• (These commands give ownership to your current user and set permissions, but specific commands might vary based on your server setup).
• php artisan serve command not found: Ensure you are running the command from the root directory of your Laravel project (cd your-project-name).

If you run into persistent issues, search the Laravel documentation, forums (like Laracasts), or Stack Overflow. The Laravel community is very helpful (Setup Laravel 12 Project).

Level Up Your Laravel Skills!

Ready to go deeper into Laravel development? While the official documentation is invaluable, sometimes having a structured guide in hand can be incredibly helpful. Consider picking up a beginner-friendly book on Laravel to further your learning journey.

13. Conclusion: You Did It!

Congratulations! You’ve successfully completed the essential steps to Setup Laravel 12 Project. You now have a fully functional Laravel application ready for development. This is a significant first step in your journey to becoming a skilled web developer using one of the most modern and efficient frameworks available (Setup Laravel 12 Project).

Remember that learning is a continuous process. Now that you have your project set up, take the time to explore the project’s directory structure, read through the default files (like web.php in the routes folder), and start experimenting with creating your own routes, controllers, and views (Setup Laravel 12 Project).

We hope this guide was clear and helpful for your Setup Laravel 12 Project. Happy coding!