Getting Started with Laravel 12: A Beginner’s First Steps

🛠️ Current Laravel version: Laravel 12 (released February 24, 2025)

Laravel has become one of the most popular PHP frameworks thanks to its elegant syntax, built-in tools, and active community. If you’re just starting out, this guide will take you through the first essential steps: installing Laravel, understanding routes, creating a controller, and working with models.

Step 1: Installing Laravel

1.1 System Requirements

Before installing Laravel 12, make sure your machine has:

• PHP 8.2+
• Composer (dependency manager for PHP)
• A supported database (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, SQL Server)
• PHP extensions: OpenSSL, Mbstring, PDO, Tokenizer, Ctype

Check versions:

php -v
composer -V

1.2 Create a Laravel Project

Option 1 – With Composer:

composer global require laravel/installer
laravel new blog-app

 Move into the project and run the built-in server: 

cd blog-app
php artisan serve

 Open in browser: 

https://127.0.0.1:8000

You should see Laravel’s welcome page 🎉.

Step 2: Working with Routes

Routes tell Laravel how to respond to a request. All web routes are defined in:

📂 routes/web.php

Example: Add a new route for /hello:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;

Route::get('/hello', function () {
    return "Hello, Laravel 12!";
});

Visit https://127.0.0.1:8000/hello → You’ll see the message.

👉 You can also return a view:

Route::get('/about', function () {
    return view('about');
});

Step 3: Creating a Controller

Instead of writing logic in routes, Laravel encourages using controllers.

Generate a controller:

php artisan make:controller PostController

This creates 📂 app/Http/Controllers/PostController.php

Inside it, add a method:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class PostController extends Controller
{
    public function index()
    {
        return "This is the posts page.";
    }
}

 Now link it in web.php: 

use App\Http\Controllers\PostController;

Route::get('/posts', [PostController::class, 'index']);

Visit https://127.0.0.1:8000/posts → Laravel loads the controller method.

Step 4: Creating a Model and Database Table

Models represent database tables. Let’s create a model for Post.

Generate a model with migration:

php artisan make:model Post -m

This creates:

• Model: app/Models/Post.php
• Migration: database/migrations/xxxx_xx_xx_create_posts_table.php

Edit the migration to add fields:

public function up(): void
{
    Schema::create('posts', function (Blueprint $table) {
        $table->id();
        $table->string('title');
        $table->text('content');
        $table->timestamps();
    });
}

 Run migration to create the table: 

php artisan migrate

Step 5: Using the Model in the Controller

Open PostController.php and use the model:

use App\Models\Post;

class PostController extends Controller
{
    public function index()
    {
        // Retrieve all posts
        $posts = Post::all();
        return $posts;
    }

    public function store(Request $request)
    {
        $post = new Post();
        $post->title = $request->title;
        $post->content = $request->content;
        $post->save();

        return "Post created successfully!";
    }
}

 Update routes to handle creating posts: 

Route::post('/posts', [PostController::class, 'store']);

Now you can send a POST request with title and content to /posts and Laravel will save it to the database 🚀.

Step 6: Next Steps

You’ve just:
 ✅ Installed Laravel 12
 ✅ Created routes
 ✅ Built a controller
 ✅ Created a model with migration
 ✅ Connected everything together

From here, you can:

• Learn Blade templates for views (resources/views/)
• Add validation to forms
• Use Eloquent relationships (e.g., User hasMany Posts)
• Explore API routes (routes/api.php)

Final Thoughts

Laravel 12 makes web development smoother and faster. By following these steps, you now understand the foundation: Routes → Controllers → Models → Database. From here, you’re ready to build real-world applications.