Laravel 11 Changes You Need To Know

1. Slim Skeleton

When you install a new Laravel project, the folder structure will look like this:

app/
├── Http/
│   └── Controllers/
│       └── Controller.php
├── Models/
│   └── User.php
└── Providers/
    └── AppServiceProvider.php
bootstrap/
├── app.php
└── providers.php
config
...

Removed folders: app/Console, app/Exceptions, app/Http/Middleware.

Routes, Middlewares, and Exceptions are now registered in the bootstrap/app.php file.

bootstrap/app.php:

use Illuminate\Foundation\Application;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Configuration\Exceptions;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Configuration\Middleware;
 
return Application::configure(basePath: dirname(__DIR__))
    ->withRouting(
        web: __DIR__.'/../routes/web.php',
        commands: __DIR__.'/../routes/console.php',
        health: '/up',
    )
    ->withMiddleware(function (Middleware $middleware) { 
        //
    })
    ->withExceptions(function (Exceptions $exceptions) {
        //
    })->create(); 

The files routes/channel.php, routes/console.php, and routes/api.php have been removed.

2. Removed Some Config Files

Config files like broadcasting.php, cors.php, sanctum.php, hashing.php, view.php are removed but you can publish them using artisan command

php artisan config:publish 

or:

php artisan config:publish --all

3. API and Broadcasting: Installed Optionally

Laravel 11 has no routes/api.php,routes/channel.php, routes/console.php installed by default. We now have to install those using artisan conmmands like

php artisan install:api
php artisan install:broadcast  

4. New Defaults: Pest and SQLite

Pest is now default testing framework in laravel and default database is now SQlite.

5. New “make:xxxxx” Commands

Some new artisan commands are added in laravel to create enums, interface and classes

php artisan make:enum
php artisan make:class
php artisan make:interface  

6. Minimum PHP 8.2

Laravel 11 dropped support for PHP 8.1. Now, PHP 8.2 is the minimum requirement.

7. Casts Method

The casts will be provided with protected method casts() instead of the protected property $casts.

class User extends Authenticatable
{
    // ...
 
    protected function casts(): array
    {
        return [
            'email_verified_at' => 'datetime',
            'password' => 'hashed',
        ];
    }
}

// Now 

protected function casts(): array
{
    return [
        'bookOptions' => [AsCollection::class, OptionCollection::class],
    ];
}

8. Limit Eager Load

Now laravel 11 will allow limiting eagerlyl loaded records. For Example

$users = User::with(['posts' => function ($query) {
    $query->latest()->limit(10); 
}])->get();  

9. Health Check

Laravel 11 comes with a new registered Route /up. The /up endpoint returns the response time.

return Application::configure(basePath: dirname(__DIR__))
    ->withRouting(
        web: __DIR__.'/../routes/web.php',
        commands: __DIR__.'/../routes/console.php',
        channels: __DIR__.'/../routes/channels.php',
        health: '/up', 
    )
    ->withMiddleware(function (Middleware $middleware) {
        //
    })
    ->withExceptions(function (Exceptions $exceptions) {
        //
    })->create();

10. once() Method

There’s a new memoization function called once(). This function ensures that a callable is called only once, returning the same result on subsequent calls.

class Post extends Model
{
    public function stats(): array
    {
        return once(function () {
            // Expensive operations to generate post stats, multiple db queries, etc...
 
            return $stats;
        });
    }
}

// Assuming you have two post instances: $postA and $postB
 
$postA->stats();
$postA->stats(); // cached result from previous line...
 
$postB->stats(); // Not using $userA cached results, because $postB !== $postA
$postB->stats(); // cached result from previous line...