Getting Started with Laravel

Laravel is the most popular PHP framework in the world. In this lesson you'll install it with Composer , understand its MVC structure, declare routes, write controllers, render Blade templates, model your data with Eloquent , and drive it all from the Artisan command line.

Learn Getting Started with Laravel in our free PHP course — an interactive lesson with worked examples, a practice exercise and a quick reference.

Part of the free Php course at LearnCodingFast — hands-on lessons with examples you run in your browser, plus practice exercises and a quick quiz.

What You'll Learn in This Lesson

1️⃣ Installing Laravel with Composer

Laravel is distributed as a Composer package , so creating a new app is a single command. composer create-project laravel/laravel blog downloads the framework, installs all its dependencies, and scaffolds a complete project. From there, php artisan serve launches a local development server. Artisan — Laravel's command-line tool — is how you'll generate code, run migrations, and manage the app throughout the lesson.

After scaffolding, the project follows a fixed layout: routes live in routes/web.php , controllers in app/Http/Controllers , models in app/Models , and views in resources/views . Knowing where each kind of file belongs is half of learning a framework.

2️⃣ Routing: Mapping URLs to Actions

A route connects an HTTP method and URL to the code that should run. You declare them in routes/web.php with calls like Route::get , Route::post , and friends. An action can be an inline closure or — better for real logic — a controller method . Routes can take URL parameters like and be wrapped in middleware groups so, for example, every route in a group requires a logged-in user.

Run php artisan route:list any time to see every route your app answers and which action handles it — invaluable when a project grows large.

3️⃣ Controllers: The Logic Layer

A controller groups the actions for one resource — listing, showing, creating, updating. Generate one with php artisan make:controller PostController . Each public method handles a route: it fetches data (usually via Eloquent), maybe validates input, and returns a view or a redirect. Crucially, a controller should never trust raw input — call $request->validate() first so the rest of the method only runs on clean data.

Notice findOrFail() : it returns the record or automatically throws a 404 if the id doesn't exist, so you don't have to write that check by hand. This kind of sensible default is everywhere in Laravel.

4️⃣ Blade Templates: The View Layer

Blade is Laravel's templating engine. Files end in .blade.php and compile down to plain PHP. Blade adds clean directives — @if , @foreach , @extends for layout inheritance — and the syntax that echoes a value and escapes it , stopping XSS automatically. That makes views readable while keeping output safe by default.

The @extends / @section pair lets every page share one parent layout (header, nav, footer) and only fill in its own content — the templating equivalent of inheritance.

5️⃣ Eloquent ORM: The Model Layer

Eloquent is Laravel's object-relational mapper. Each model class maps to a database table, and table rows become objects you can read, change, and save — no hand-written SQL. You define the table's structure in a migration (run with php artisan migrate ), set $fillable for safe mass-assignment, and declare relationships like belongsTo and hasMany as methods so related records are just a property away.

Now you try the two core skills — declaring a route and validating input. Fill in each ___ using the 👉 hint, then run the matching artisan command and check the Output panel.

One more. A controller must validate before it saves. Add the validation call and the missing rule.

📋 Quick Reference — Laravel Basics

No code is filled in this time — just a brief and an outline. Build it yourself in a real Laravel project: generate the model and migration, wire up routes, list tasks in a Blade view, and add a validated create action. This is the full MVC loop you'll use in every Laravel app.

Practice quiz

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