Laravel Prompts: build delightful Artisan commands

Benjamin Crozat

Modified on Sep 20, 2023 • 0 comments • Edit

Laravel Prompts: build delightful Artisan commands

Introduction

Laravel Prompts was introduced by Jess Archer at Laracon US on July 19, 2023.

The package is widely used in Laravel to drastically improve the developer experience and you can also take advantage of it.

This is a tutorial to help you get started with it.

Requirements for Laravel Prompts

Laravel Prompts only supports macOS, Linux, and Windows with WSL. Outside of WSL, it will fall back onto Symfony’s implementation of the various features Laravel Prompts offers.

You will also need at least Laravel 10 and PHP 8.1.

How to install Laravel Prompts

Laravel Prompts only requires the package to be installed. There’s no configuration file or service provider to publish.

composer require laravel/prompts

Now, we can start building awesome prompts for your Artisan commands.

Learn the basics by building

If you ever built your own Artisan commands, you will appreciate how easy to use Laravel Prompts is.

Let’s create a new command for the sake of this tutorial:

php artisan make:command MakePokemonCommand

Now, instead of the following code:

namespace App\Console\Commands;

use App\Models\User;
use Illuminate\Console\Command;

class MakePokemonCommand extends Command
{
    protected $signature = 'make:pokemon';

    protected $description = 'Create a new Pokémon';

    public function handle()
    {
        $name = $this->ask('What should the name be?');
	  
        …
    }
}

You can use the functions Laravel Prompts provides and enjoy an improved output:

namespace App\Console\Commands;

use App\Models\User;
use Illuminate\Console\Command;
use function Laravel\Prompts\text;

class MakePokemonCommand extends Command
{
    protected $signature = 'make:pokemon';

    protected $description = 'Create a new Pokémon';

    public function handle()
    {
        $name = text('What should the name be?');

        Pokemon::create(compact('name'));

        $this->info("$name was successfully created!");
    }
}

Easy, right?

Here’s a screenshot of the command in action.

Our make:pokemon command in action thanks to Laravel Prompts

Add a multi-select

Let’s go even further and add type selection:

$types = multiselect(
    label: 'What types should your Pokémon have?',
    options: [
        'Bug', 'Dark', 'Dragon', 'Electric', 'Fairy', 'Fighting', 'Fire', 'Flying', 'Ghost', 'Grass', 'Ground', 'Ice', 'Normal', 'Poison', 'Psychic', 'Rock', 'Steel', 'Water',
    ],
    required: true,
    scroll: 10,
    validate: function (array $values) {
	    return ! in_array(count($values), [1, 2])
            ? 'A maximum of two types can be assigned to a Pokémon.'
            : null;
	}
);

Have the 18 possible types as options.
The prompt is required to have an answer.
We display 10 choices at once.
We ensure that 1 or 2 types only can be assigned.
We leverage PHP’s named arguments to keep our code informative and omit some arguments.

Here’s how the refreshed Artisan command using Laravel Prompts looks:

make:pokemon with multiselect and validation.

Laravel Prompts is so easy to use!

Add a spinner (loading animation)

Laravel Prompts lets you use a beautiful loading animation, effortlessly. Just as the rest of the API, it’s as simple as calling the spin() function:

use function Laravel\Prompts\spin;
 
$response = spin(
    fn () => Http::get('http://example.com'),
    'Fetching response...'
);

According to the documentation, the spin function requires the pcntl PHP extension to trigger the animation. When it’s not available, a static version of the spinner will appear instead.

Now that you got the gist of Laravel Prompts, you can refer to the super easy to understand documentation and continue your journey alone.

Contribute to Laravel Prompts

If you ever encounter a bug or feel like Laravel Prompts needs one more feature, you might want to send your pull requests directly to the official repository: https://github.com/laravel/prompts