How to use the Laravel Specialist agent skill

What the laravel-specialist skill does

An agent skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md file and optional reference files. When the skill is installed and your request matches its description, the agent reads these instructions and follows them while it works. This skill covers Eloquent models and relationships, API resources, queued jobs and Horizon queue setup, Sanctum authentication, Livewire components, and Pest or PHPUnit tests.

• Follows a five-step workflow: analyse requirements, design architecture, implement models, build features, then test.
• Provides starting-point templates for an Eloquent model, a migration, an API resource, a queued job and a Pest feature test.
• Sets rules such as type hints on all parameters and return types, eager loading to avoid N+1 queries, validating user input, and not mixing business logic into controllers.
• Asks the agent to run artisan commands such as migrate:status, route:list, queue:work --once and test --coverage to check its own work.

Install the laravel-specialist skill

Download the ZIP for the skill from this page and unzip it. You can install it for yourself across all projects or for a single project.

For a personal install, place the unzipped skill folder in ~/.claude/skills/. For a project install, place it in the project's .claude/skills/ folder. In the Claude apps you can also upload the skill under Settings → Capabilities → Skills.

• Personal: ~/.claude/skills/ (available to every project on your machine).
• Project: .claude/skills/ inside your Laravel project (shared when the project folder is shared).
• Claude apps: Settings → Capabilities → Skills, then upload the skill.

Check what your project needs before you start

The skill assumes a working Laravel environment. Check these items first so the agent's commands will run.

• PHP 8.2 or newer.
• A Laravel 10+ project.
• Composer and the artisan command line tools available.
• Pest or PHPUnit for tests.
• Horizon, only if you want the queue dashboard.
• Livewire, only if you are building Livewire components.

Trigger the skill with natural requests

You do not need a special command. Describe the Laravel task in normal language and mention the Laravel area involved, such as models, queues, Sanctum, Livewire or tests. The skill's description lists the situations it applies to, so requests that match those situations are the ones most likely to use it.

Be specific about the model names, fields and relationships. The agent produces better code when it knows what a Post belongs to or what a job should do.

• Create a Post model with a title, body, status enum and soft deletes, and belongs-to a User.
• Set up a queue worker and a job that publishes a post after it is submitted.
• Add Sanctum token authentication to my API and protect the posts routes.
• Build a Livewire component that searches and sorts a paginated list of posts.
• Write Pest feature tests for the posts API, including a test that the publish job is queued.

Review the output and run the checks

The templates are starting points, not finished code. The source states that the agent may produce errors or insecure configuration, so review generated code before merging it. Run the checks the skill itself recommends: migrate:status to confirm migrations ran, route:list --path=api to confirm new routes, queue:work --once to confirm a job processes, and test --coverage to see test results and coverage.

• After migration: php artisan migrate:status should show all migrations as Ran.
• After routing: php artisan route:list --path=api should show the new routes with the correct verbs.
• After job dispatch: php artisan queue:work --once should process the job without an exception.
• Before a pull request: php artisan test --coverage should report 0 failures.

Safety notes: scripts and network

According to the skill's listing, it does not run scripts and does not use the network. It consists of instructions and code templates. The agent still runs artisan and test commands in your project when it follows the workflow, so run it in a project you are willing to let the agent change, ideally under version control.

Note the rules the skill itself sets for security: it says not to use raw queries without protection, not to store sensitive data unencrypted, and not to hardcode configuration. Check these in any generated code that touches authentication or data.

• Runs scripts: no.
• Uses network: no.
• Review Sanctum and authentication code by hand before deployment.
• Keep queue failure handling in place; the skill says not to ignore queue failures.