Laravel 12 Starter Kits: A New Era for React, Vue, and Livewire

How Laravel's new starter kits simplify modern web development with Shadcn components and Flux.

Setting up a new project often involves navigating a maze of configuration and boilerplate. Authenticating users, establishing a frontend framework, and integrating a component library can consume valuable time before a single line of business logic is written. For companies looking to accelerate project delivery, this initial friction is a significant hurdle. The Laravel team has always focused on optimizing the developer experience, and with Laravel 12, they've taken another major step forward by introducing a suite of powerful new starter kits.

These kits for React, Vue, and Livewire are more than just a fresh coat of paint. They represent a new era for bootstrapping modern web applications within the Laravel ecosystem. By integrating sought-after tools like Shadcn UI components, Flux for Livewire, and WorkOS for authentication, Laravel 12 offers a streamlined, production-ready foundation right out of the box. This guide explores these new starter kits, their features, and how you can leverage them to optimize your development process.

The Problem with Traditional Project Setup

For years, Laravel has offered starter kits like Breeze and Jetstream, which have served the community well. However, the modern web development landscape evolves quickly. Development teams now expect seamless integration with specific UI component libraries and advanced authentication solutions to meet pressing market demands.

Previously, integrating a library like Shadcn required manual setup, including configuring Tailwind CSS, installing dependencies, and creating wrapper components. Similarly, implementing enterprise-grade authentication like SSO or passkeys was a complex task left to individual teams. This initial setup phase could easily stretch into days, delaying the start of actual feature development and frustrating efforts to reduce recruitment hurdles for new developers. Laravel 12's new starter kits are designed to eliminate this friction entirely.

What's New? A Unified and Modern Approach

The new starter kits are installed directly into your application's codebase from separate GitHub repositories. This is a significant change from past kits that were managed as vendor packages. The immediate benefit is complete control—every file is yours to modify and extend as you see fit. Your team is no longer constrained by the vendor directory, making long-term maintenance and customization far more straightforward.

Each starter kit comes with a modern, elegant design and offers variants for integrating WorkOS, a powerful platform for user authentication that is becoming increasingly important for B2B applications.

Core Features Across All Kits:

• Shadcn UI Integration: All kits come pre-configured with Shadcn components for both Vue and React, or a Shadcn-inspired set for the Livewire stack. This provides a beautiful, accessible, and highly customizable component library from day one.
• WorkOS AuthKit Variants: For applications requiring more than simple email and password authentication, the WorkOS variant is a game-changer. It provides built-in support for social authentication, passkeys, and Single Sign-On (SSO) with enterprise identity providers.
• Direct Code Control: Because the kits are pulled directly into your app directory, you have full ownership of the code, making customization and maintenance straightforward.

A Closer Look at Each Starter Kit

Let's break down what each of the three primary starter kits offers and how they cater to different development preferences. This will help you decide which is the best fit to enhance your team's code quality and efficiency.

1. The Livewire Starter Kit with Flux

For developers who love building dynamic applications without leaving PHP, the Livewire kit is a dream come true. It pairs the power of Livewire with a set of beautifully crafted components, allowing for rapid development of interactive UIs.

Key Features:

• Flux Components: The Livewire kit includes an option for a free version of Flux, a premium component library designed specifically for TALL stack applications. These components are interactive, look great, and integrate seamlessly with Livewire's backend-driven approach.
• Shadcn-Inspired UI: The default components are heavily inspired by the clean aesthetics and functionality of Shadcn, providing a consistent and modern look that users will appreciate.
• Simplified Interactivity: You can build complex, real-time user interfaces with minimal JavaScript. The starter kit provides excellent examples, from modals and dropdowns to complete forms, all powered by Livewire.

Benefits:
The primary strength here is efficiency. Your team can build sophisticated interfaces without the context-switching penalty of managing a separate frontend codebase. This proven approach is ideal for small teams or backend-focused developers who need to ship beautiful, functional UIs quickly and leverage their existing Laravel expertise.

Potential Limitations:
While Livewire is incredibly powerful, applications requiring extremely complex, state-heavy client-side interactions (like a real-time graphics editor or a browser-based design tool) might still benefit from a dedicated JavaScript framework.

2. The Vue and React Starter Kits with Shadcn

For teams committed to a JavaScript front end, the new Vue and React starter kits offer an exceptional foundation. They solve the "blank canvas" problem by providing a fully configured starting point that aligns with modern best practices.

Key Features:

• Pre-configured Shadcn UI: This is the headline feature. Instead of spending hours setting up Shadcn, your team can start using its components immediately. The installer handles all the configuration for Tailwind CSS variants, utility functions, and base components.
• Inertia for Seamless Integration: Both kits use Inertia to bridge the gap between your Laravel backend and your JavaScript front end. This allows you to build a single-page application experience while leveraging Laravel's reliable routing, controllers, and authentication.
• Type-Safe and Modern: The kits are built with modern practices in mind, encouraging the use of TypeScript and providing a clean, organized file structure that promotes maintainability.

Benefits:
These kits provide the best of both worlds. You get the robust backend capabilities of Laravel paired with the rich, interactive front-end ecosystems of Vue or React. The inclusion of Shadcn is a massive productivity boost, allowing you to build polished UIs with proven, accessible components and enhance code quality from the project's inception.

Potential Limitations:
The learning curve can be steeper if your team is not already familiar with Inertia. While Inertia simplifies many aspects of building SPA-like applications, it introduces its own concepts that developers will need to understand to use it effectively.

The WorkOS Advantage: Enterprise-Ready Authentication

Perhaps one of the most significant additions to the Laravel 12 starter kits is the optional WorkOS integration. For any SaaS application or platform targeting business customers, robust authentication is a necessity, not a luxury. Building support for SSO or passkeys from scratch is a massive undertaking.

The WorkOS AuthKit variant handles this complexity for you. By selecting this option during installation, your application is instantly equipped with a secure, enterprise-grade authentication system. This feature alone can save weeks of development time and reduce security risks, making it easier to attract and onboard enterprise clients.

Getting Started: A Simple Command

Installing a new starter kit is incredibly simple. After creating a new Laravel 12 project, you can use the php artisan install: command with your preferred stack. This allows your team to accelerate project delivery right from the start.

# Install the Livewire starter kit
php artisan install:livewire

# Install the Vue starter kit with WorkOS for enterprise auth
php artisan install:vue --workos

# Install the React starter kit
php artisan install:react

The installer will guide you through the process, pulling in the necessary files and configuring your project. Within minutes, you'll have a running application with authentication and a modern UI, ready for you to start building your unique features.

Conclusion: A New Baseline for Laravel Development

The new starter kits in Laravel 12 are a testament to the framework's commitment to developer productivity and modern best practices. By bundling tools like Shadcn, Flux, and WorkOS into an easy-to-install package, Laravel has significantly raised the bar for what a starter kit can be.

This is more than just a convenience; it's a strategic move that empowers development teams to move faster, build higher-quality products, and adopt enterprise-ready features with minimal effort. Whether you prefer the PHP-centric world of Livewire or the JavaScript power of Vue and React, Laravel 12 provides a first-class foundation to optimize your development process and build your next innovative application.