Skip to content
Laravel
Algolia Algolia
Algolia Algolia
Icon

WARNING You're browsing the documentation for an upcoming version of Laravel. The documentation and features of this release are subject to change.

Laravel Sail

Introduction

Laravel Sail is a light-weight command-line interface for interacting with Laravel's default Docker development environment. Sail provides a great starting point for building a Laravel application using PHP, MySQL, and Redis without requiring prior Docker experience.

At its heart, Sail is the docker-compose.yml file and the sail script that is stored at the root of your project. The sail script provides a CLI with convenient methods for interacting with the Docker containers defined by the docker-compose.yml file.

Laravel Sail is supported on macOS, Linux, and Windows (via WSL2).

Installation & Setup

Laravel Sail is automatically installed with all new Laravel applications so you may start using it immediately. To learn how to create a new Laravel application, please consult Laravel's installation documentation for your operating system.

Installing Sail Into Existing Applications

If you are interested in using Sail with an existing Laravel application, you may simply install Sail using the Composer package manager. Of course, these steps assume that your existing local development environment allows you to install Composer dependencies:

composer require laravel/sail --dev

After Sail has been installed, you may run the sail:install Artisan command. This command will publish Sail's docker-compose.yml file to the root of your application:

php artisan sail:install

Finally, you may start Sail. To continue learning how to use Sail, please continue reading the remainder of this documentation:

./vendor/bin/sail up

Configuring A Bash Alias

By default, Sail commands are invoked using the vendor/bin/sail script that is included with all new Laravel applications:

./vendor/bin/sail up

However, instead of repeatedly typing vendor/bin/sail to execute Sail commands, you may wish to configure a Bash alias that allows you to execute Sail's commands more easily:

alias sail='bash vendor/bin/sail'

Once the Bash alias has been configured, you may execute Sail commands by simply typing sail. The remainder of this documentation's examples will assume that you have configured this alias:

sail up

Starting & Stopping Sail

Laravel Sail's docker-compose.yml file defines a Docker variety of containers that work together to help you build Laravel applications. Each of these containers is an entry within the services configuration of your docker-compose.yml file. The laravel.test container is the primary application container that will be serving your application.

Before starting Sail, you should ensure that no other web servers or databases are running on your local computer. To start all of the Docker containers defined in your application's docker-compose.yml file, you should execute the up command:

sail up

To start all of the Docker containers in the background, you may start Sail in "detached" mode:

sail up -d

Once the application's containers have been started, you may access the project in your web browser at: http://localhost.

To stop all of the containers, you may simply press Control + C to stop the container's execution. Or, if the containers are running in the background, you may use the down command:

sail down

Executing Commands

When using Laravel Sail, your application is executing within a Docker container and is isolated from your local computer. However, Sail provides a convenient way to run various commands against your application such as arbitrary PHP commands, Artisan commands, Composer commands, and Node / NPM commands.

When reading the Laravel documentation, you will often see references to Composer, Artisan, and Node / NPM commands that do not reference Sail. Those examples assume that these tools are installed on your local computer. If you are using Sail for your local Laravel development environment, you should execute those commands using Sail:

# Running Artisan commands locally...
php artisan queue:work

# Running Artisan commands within Laravel Sail...
sail artisan queue:work

Executing PHP Commands

PHP commands may be executed using the php command. Of course, these commands will execute using the PHP version that is configured for your application. To learn more about the PHP versions available to Laravel Sail, consult the PHP version documentation:

sail php --version

sail php script.php

Executing Composer Commands

Composer commands may be executed using the composer command. Laravel Sail's application container includes a Composer 2.x installation:

sail composer require laravel/sanctum

Installing Composer Dependencies For Existing Applications

If you are developing an application with a team, you may not be the one that initially creates the Laravel application. Therefore, none of the application's Composer dependencies, including Sail, will be installed after you clone the application's repository to your local computer.

You may install the application's dependencies by navigating to the application's directory and executing the following command. This command uses a small Docker container containing PHP and Composer to install the application's dependencies:

docker run --rm \
    -v $(pwd):/opt \
    -w /opt \
    laravelsail/php80-composer:latest \
    composer install

Executing Artisan Commands

Laravel Artisan commands may be executed using the artisan command:

sail artisan queue:work

Executing Node / NPM Commands

Node commands may be executed using the node command while NPM commands may be executed using the npm command:

sail node --version

sail npm run prod

Interacting With Databases

MySQL

As you may have noticed, your application's docker-compose.yml file contains an entry for a MySQL container. This container uses a Docker volume so that the data stored in your database is persisted even when stopping and restarting your containers. In addition, when the MySQL container is starting, it will ensure a database exists whose name matches the value of your DB_DATABASE environment variable.

Once you have started your containers, you may connect to the MySQL instance within your application by setting your DB_HOST environment variable within your application's .env file to mysql.

To connect to your application's MySQL database from your local machine, you may use a graphical database management application such as TablePlus. By default, the MySQL database is accessible at localhost port 3306.

Redis

Your application's docker-compose.yml file also contains an entry for a Redis container. This container uses a Docker volume so that the data stored in your Redis data is persisted even when stopping and restarting your containers. Once you have started your containers, you may connect to the Redis instance within your application by setting your REDIS_HOST environment variable within your application's .env file to redis.

To connect to your application's Redis database from your local machine, you may use a graphical database management application such as TablePlus. By default, the Redis database is accessible at localhost port 6379.

Running Tests

Laravel provides amazing testing support out of the box, and you may use Sail's test command to run your applications feature and unit tests. Any CLI options that are accepted by PHPUnit may also be passed to the test command:

sail test

sail test --group orders

The Sail test command is equivalent to running the test Artisan command:

sail artisan test

Laravel Dusk

Laravel Dusk provides an expressive, easy-to-use browser automation and testing API. Thanks to Sail, you may run these tests without ever installing Selenium or other tools on your local computer. To get started, uncomment the Selenium service in your application's docker-compose.yml file:

selenium:
    image: 'selenium/standalone-chrome'
    volumes:
        - '/dev/shm:/dev/shm'
    networks:
        - sail

Next, ensure that the laravel.test service in your application's docker-compose.yml file has a depends_on entry for selenium:

depends_on:
    - mysql
    - redis
    - selenium

Finally, you may run your Dusk test suite by starting Sail and running the dusk command:

sail dusk

Previewing Emails

Laravel Sail's default docker-compose.yml file contains a service entry for MailHog. MailHog intercepts emails sent by your application during local development and provides a convenient web interface so that you can preview your email messages in your browser. When using Sail, MailHog's default host is mailhog and is available via port 1025:

MAIL_HOST=mailhog
MAIL_PORT=1025

When Sail is running, you may access the MailHog web interface at: http://localhost:8025

Container CLI

Sometimes you may wish to start a Bash session within your application's container. You may use the shell command to connect to your application's container, allowing you to inspect its files and installed services as well execute arbitrary shell commands within the container:

sail shell

To start a new Laravel Tinker session, you may execute the tinker command:

sail tinker

PHP Versions

Sail currently supports serving your application via PHP 8.0 or PHP 7.4. To change the PHP version that is used to serve your application, you should update the build definition of the laravel.test container in your application's docker-compose.yml file:

# PHP 8.0
context: ./vendor/laravel/sail/runtimes/8.0

# PHP 7.4
context: ./vendor/laravel/sail/runtimes/7.4

In addition, you may wish to update your image name to reflect the version of PHP being used by your application. This option is also defined in your application's docker-compose.yml file:

image: sail-8.0/app

After updating your application's docker-compose.yml file, you should rebuild your container images:

sail build --no-cache

sail up

Sharing Your Site

Sometimes you may need to share your site publicly in order to preview your site for a colleague or to test webhook integrations with your application. To share your site, you may use the share command. After executing this command, you will be issued a random laravel-sail.site URL that you may use to access your application:

sail share

If you would like to choose the subdomain for your shared site, you may provide the subdomain option when executing the share command:

sail share --subdomain=my-sail-site

{tip} The share command is powered by Expose, an open source tunneling service by BeyondCode.

Customization

Since Sail is just Docker, you are free to customize nearly everything about it. To publish Sail's own Dockerfiles, you may execute the sail:publish command:

php artisan sail:publish

After running this command, the Dockerfiles and other configuration files used by Laravel Sail will be placed within a docker directory in your application's root directory. After customizing your Sail installation, you may rebuild your application's containers using the build command:

sail build --no-cache