Laravel 13.19, weekly updates and tip

Laravel 13.19

This week brings us to Laravel 13.19.0. Here are the highlights:

  • Add input() method to console commands in #60607
  • Add Release queue middleware in #60630
  • Add counted method to Str and Stringable in #60649
  • Add query and queryJson HTTP testing helpers in #60662
  • Support inspecting delayed jobs on the queue fake in #60636
  • Allow mail config options without name in #60668
  • Add Http::query() method to the HTTP client in #60663
  • Allow assertDatabaseEmpty to handle iterable in #60621

You may review the full branch diff on GitHub for a complete list of changes.

Weekly Journal

Last week I wrapped up two more Human Shifts. One upgrading a Laravel 10 application with Livewire 2. The other coming from Laravel 9 with some abandoned packages. I completed each of them in under 8 hours! In the past, without AI, I think that Laravel 10 + Livewire 2 would have taken 8-12 hours, not 6.

I continue to see more adoption of the AI Review add-on. It's now climbed past 10%, approaching 20%. I'm seeing it excel at some of the larger releases, like Laravel 10 and Laravel 11. But it'll catch things on the latest release too. Again, I'm continuing to tweak it and Shift itself as I analyze each run.

This week, between working on the Human Shifts, I'm getting back into livestreaming. I announced it on X, but I'm going to break ground on a new PHP testing library. I've wanted to do this for a long time. Just never had the capacity. But with AI, specifically Claude Fable 5, I think I could make solid progress in just a few streams.

Weekly Tip

I did a Refactor Friday last week to clean up the laravelshift.com codebase. I do these from time to time. Essentially performing the BaseCode practices. That's mostly automated with AI.

However, this last Friday, I focused a bit more on dead code. I've removed some old Shifts and split out the blog. So there were a lot of lingering classes and templates. It's always nice to remove code. Keeps the codebase feeling fresh. Avoids that "broken windows" feeling.