Laravel Artisan command cheatsheet

A searchable reference of the Artisan commands you actually use — what each one does, when to reach for it, and the flags worth knowing.

About the artisan command cheatsheet

The framework ships with far more console commands than anyone remembers, and the useful flags are often the part you forget. This is a searchable reference for the commands that come up in real work, with what each one does and when to reach for it.

Search by command name when you know what you want, or by intent when you only know the outcome you are after.

When to use it

  • You know what you want to do but not which command does it.
  • You need the right cache or queue command during an incident.
  • You are onboarding someone and want a compact reference to hand them.
  • You want the flags for a command you use rarely.

What it does not do

  • It does not list commands added by third-party packages in your project.
  • It is not a substitute for the official documentation on edge-case behaviour.
  • It does not run anything — it is a reference.

How the result is produced

Commands are grouped by area — migrations, queues, caching, generation, maintenance — and each entry states its effect and the flags worth knowing. Search matches both the command name and the description, so intent-based queries work.

What to watch out for

The commands worth memorising are the ones you reach for under pressure: clearing and rebuilding caches after a deploy, restarting queue workers so they pick up new code, and putting the application into and out of maintenance mode. Getting those wrong during an incident extends it.

Worker restarts are the classic trap. Long-running queue workers hold the old code in memory, so a deploy that does not signal them leaves jobs running against yesterday's application until the process happens to cycle.

Cache commands behave differently in development and production. Configuration and route caches make production faster and make local development confusing, because changes appear not to take effect. Knowing which command clears which cache is most of the debugging.

Two habits make console work safer. First, prefer commands that are idempotent, so running one twice does no harm — that matters when you are unsure whether the first attempt completed. Second, be careful with anything that resets or refreshes the database; those commands are indispensable locally and catastrophic against production, and the flag that separates the two is easy to mistype. Confirming which environment you are pointing at before running a destructive command is a one-second habit that eventually saves a very bad afternoon.

Real inputs and the exact output

Every example below was run through this artisan command cheatsheet and copied verbatim.

The Artisan command cheatsheet with a search box filtering commands by name and description
Search or filter by category; every entry shows the flags that actually matter in day-to-day work.

Example 1: The deploy sequence for a Laravel 11 app

What to run, in order, on a production release.

`queue:restart` is the step teams forget — without it, workers keep running the previous release's code until they are killed.

Deploy

php artisan down --render="errors::503" --retry=60
composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader
php artisan migrate --force
php artisan config:cache
php artisan route:cache
php artisan view:cache
php artisan event:cache
php artisan queue:restart
php artisan up

Example 2: Undoing the caches while debugging

Config cache hides .env changes, which produces confusing 'the variable is empty' bugs.

`php artisan about` tells you in one screen whether config is cached, which queue driver is live and what PHP version is running.

Debug

php artisan optimize:clear   # config + route + view + event + compiled
php artisan about            # environment, drivers, cached state at a glance

How it works

  1. Search by command name or by what you are trying to do.
  2. Filter by category to browse a whole area, such as queues or caching.
  3. Copy any command straight to your clipboard.

Frequently asked questions

Which Artisan commands should never run in production?
`migrate:fresh` and `migrate:refresh` drop tables and will destroy live data. `db:wipe` does the same. Treat `migrate --force` as the only migration command that belongs in a deploy script.
What should a Laravel deploy script actually run?
Typically `composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader`, `php artisan migrate --force`, `config:cache`, `route:cache`, `view:cache`, then restart the queue workers with `queue:restart` so they load the new code.
Why do my config changes not take effect?
Because `config:cache` has been run and the cached file is being read instead of your .env. Run `php artisan config:clear` in development, and re-run `config:cache` after any production config change.

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