Getting Started with Laravel Skeleton: A Modern Starter Kit for Full-Stack Applications

Explore the features, setup, and use cases of Laravel Skeleton for building production-ready applications.

Starting a new Laravel project often involves a series of repetitive setup tasks: installing and configuring authentication, setting up a frontend framework, integrating an admin panel, and wiring up essential tools for testing and code quality. While Laravel provides an excellent foundation, building out these common features for every new application can consume valuable development time. What if you could skip the boilerplate and jump straight into building your application's unique features?

This is where starter kits become invaluable. The Laravel Skeleton package is an opinionated, production-ready starter kit designed to accelerate the development of modern, full-stack Laravel applications. It comes pre-configured with a powerful set of tools, including a React frontend with Inertia.js, a beautiful Filament admin panel, Stripe integration via Laravel Cashier, and real-time capabilities with Laravel Reverb.

This guide will provide a comprehensive overview of the Laravel Skeleton package. We will explore its key features, walk through the setup process step-by-step, and demonstrate how you can leverage its pre-built components to build and launch your next project faster than ever before.

What is Laravel Skeleton?

Laravel Skeleton is a modern, full-stack application starter kit built on Laravel 12 and PHP 8.4. It packages together a curated collection of best-in-class tools and libraries to provide a robust foundation for building SaaS applications, e-commerce platforms, or any complex web application. By handling the initial setup and configuration, it allows developers to focus on business logic rather than infrastructure.

Key Features at a Glance

The package is packed with features that address the common needs of modern web applications:

• Backend: Laravel 12, offering the latest features from the PHP ecosystem.
• Frontend: A seamless integration of React 19 with TypeScript and Inertia.js, enabling you to build dynamic, single-page application experiences without building a separate API.
• Admin Panel: A comprehensive admin panel powered by Filament 4, providing ready-to-use CRUD interfaces, user management, and real-time notifications.
• Payments: Built-in Stripe integration using Laravel Cashier for subscription management and payment processing.
• Authentication: Standard user authentication along with social authentication via Laravel Socialite.
• Real-time Functionality: WebSocket communication powered by Laravel Reverb for building interactive, real-time features.
• Production-Ready Tooling: Comes with Docker support, pre-configured testing suites (Pest), code quality tools (Pint, PHPStan), and monitoring via Laravel Nightwatch.

Setting Up Your Project with Laravel Skeleton

Getting started with Laravel Skeleton is a straightforward process. It’s designed to get you up and running in minutes.

Step 1: Clone the Repository and Install Dependencies

First, clone the project repository from GitHub and navigate into the newly created directory. Then, install the required PHP and Node.js dependencies.

git clone https://github.com/antonL95/laravel-skeleton.git your-project-name
cd your-project-name
composer install
npm install

Step 2: Configure Your Environment

Next, create your environment file by copying the example file and generate a new application key.

cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate

Open the .env file and configure your database connection details. By default, the skeleton is configured to use SQLite, which is excellent for local development.

Step 3: Set Up the Database

With your environment configured, run the database migrations and seeders. The seeder will create a default admin user for you to log in with.

# Create the SQLite database file if it doesn't exist
touch database/database.sqlite

# Run migrations and seed the database
php artisan migrate --seed

Step 4: Build Frontend Assets

Finally, compile the frontend assets using Vite. You can run the development server for hot-reloading or build the assets for production.

# For development with hot-reloading
npm run dev

# For production
npm run build

Your application is now running! You can visit it in your browser and log into the admin panel using the credentials created by the seeder.

Leveraging the Power of Pre-Configured Tools

The real value of Laravel Skeleton lies in its thoughtful integration of powerful tools. Let's explore how to use some of them.

Building an Admin Panel with Filament

Filament is a collection of tools for rapidly building beautiful TALL stack admin panels. Laravel Skeleton comes with a pre-configured Filament setup, including user management.

Creating a new CRUD resource is incredibly simple. For example, if you have a Product model, you can generate a complete CRUD interface with a single command:

php artisan make:filament-resource Product --generate

This command will create a ProductResource.php file in the app/Filament/Resources directory. This class defines the form, table, and pages for managing your products. You can customize the fields and columns to fit your needs.

// app/Filament/Resources/ProductResource.php
use Filament\Forms;
use Filament\Tables;

public static function form(Form $form): Form
{
    return $form
        ->schema([
            Forms\Components\TextInput::make('name')->required(),
            Forms\Components\TextInput::make('price')->numeric()->prefix('$'),
            Forms\Components\Textarea::make('description')->columnSpanFull(),
        ]);
}

public static function table(Table $table): Table
{
    return $table
        ->columns([
            Tables\Columns\TextColumn::make('name')->searchable(),
            Tables\Columns\TextColumn::make('price')->money('usd')->sortable(),
        ])
        ->filters([
            // ...
        ]);
}

Just by defining this resource, you get a fully functional, searchable, and sortable table for your products in the admin panel.

Handling Payments with Laravel Cashier and Stripe

The skeleton comes ready for payment processing with Laravel Cashier. To get started, simply add your Stripe API keys to your .env file:

STRIPE_KEY=pk_your_stripe_key
STRIPE_SECRET=sk_your_stripe_secret
STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET=whsec_your_webhook_secret

With this configuration, you can easily manage subscriptions for your users. For example, to create a new subscription, you can use the newSubscription method in your controller:

// In a controller
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Models\User;

public function createSubscription(Request $request, User $user)
{
    $user->newSubscription('default', 'price_monthly_plan')
         ->create($request->paymentMethod);
    
    return back()->with('success', 'Subscription created!');
}

Cashier handles all the complexities of communicating with Stripe, including creating customers, handling webhooks, and managing subscription statuses.

Benefits for Developers

Adopting Laravel Skeleton provides tangible benefits that speed up development and improve code quality.

• Accelerated Development: By eliminating the need to configure common features, you can save days or even weeks of setup time.
• Best Practices by Default: The starter kit is built with modern best practices in mind, from its use of data transfer objects (DTOs) with Spatie's Laravel Data package to its type-safe frontend routing.
• Consistent Tooling: All code quality tools, including Pint, PHPStan, and Rector, are pre-configured. The team can rely on a single command, composer lint, to ensure code standards are met.
• Integrated Testing: The project includes a full testing suite using Pest, with separate configurations for unit, feature, browser, and architecture tests. This encourages a test-driven development approach from day one.

Conclusion

The Laravel Skeleton package is a powerful and opinionated starter kit that provides a robust foundation for building modern, full-stack applications. It addresses many of the repetitive and time-consuming tasks associated with starting a new project, allowing developers to focus on what truly matters: building great features for their users.

By providing a curated stack of best-in-class tools for everything from the frontend to payment processing, it empowers you to build scalable, maintainable, and production-ready applications with confidence. Whether you are a solo developer looking to launch your next SaaS idea or a team aiming to standardize your project setup, Laravel Skeleton is an excellent choice that can significantly accelerate your development workflow.