Introduction
The default Laravel application structure is intended to provide a great starting point for both large and small applications. But you are free to organize your application however you like. Laravel imposes almost no restrictions on where any given class is located - as long as Composer can autoload the class.
Where Is The Models Directory?
When getting started with Laravel, many developers are confused by
the lack of a models
directory. However, the lack of such a
directory is intentional. We find the word "models" ambiguous since it
means many different things to many different people. Some developers
refer to an application's "model" as the totality of all of its business
logic, while others refer to "models" as classes that interact with a
relational database.
For this reason, we choose to place Eloquent models in the
app
directory by default, and allow the developer to place
them somewhere else if they choose.
The Root Directory
The App Directory
The app
directory contains the core code of your
application. We'll explore this directory in more detail soon; however,
almost all of the classes in your application will be in this
directory.
The Bootstrap Directory
The bootstrap
directory contains the
app.php
file which bootstraps the framework. This directory
also houses a cache
directory which contains framework
generated files for performance optimization such as the route and
services cache files.
The Config Directory
The config
directory, as the name implies, contains all
of your application's configuration files. It's a great idea to read
through all of these files and familiarize yourself with all of the
options available to you.
The Database Directory
The database
directory contains your database
migrations, model factories, and seeds. If you wish, you may also use
this directory to hold an SQLite database.
The Public Directory
The public
directory contains the index.php
file, which is the entry point for all requests entering your
application and configures autoloading. This directory also houses your
assets such as images, JavaScript, and CSS.
The Resources Directory
The resources
directory contains your views as well as
your raw, un-compiled assets such as LESS, SASS, or JavaScript. This
directory also houses all of your language files.
The Routes Directory
The routes
directory contains all of the route
definitions for your application. By default, several route files are
included with Laravel: web.php
, api.php
,
console.php
and channels.php
.
The web.php
file contains routes that the
RouteServiceProvider
places in the web
middleware group, which provides session state, CSRF protection, and
cookie encryption. If your application does not offer a stateless,
RESTful API, all of your routes will most likely be defined in the
web.php
file.
The api.php
file contains routes that the
RouteServiceProvider
places in the api
middleware group, which provides rate limiting. These routes are
intended to be stateless, so requests entering the application through
these routes are intended to be authenticated via tokens and will not
have access to session state.
The console.php
file is where you may define all of your
Closure based console commands. Each Closure is bound to a command
instance allowing a simple approach to interacting with each command's
IO methods. Even though this file does not define HTTP routes, it
defines console based entry points (routes) into your application.
The channels.php
file is where you may register all of
the event broadcasting channels that your application supports.
The Storage Directory
The storage
directory contains your compiled Blade
templates, file based sessions, file caches, and other files generated
by the framework. This directory is segregated into app
,
framework
, and logs
directories. The
app
directory may be used to store any files generated by
your application. The framework
directory is used to store
framework generated files and caches. Finally, the logs
directory contains your application's log files.
The storage/app/public
directory may be used to store
user-generated files, such as profile avatars, that should be publicly
accessible. You should create a symbolic link at
public/storage
which points to this directory. You may
create the link using the php artisan storage:link
command.
The Tests Directory
The tests
directory contains your automated tests. An
example PHPUnit test is provided out
of the box. Each test class should be suffixed with the word
Test
. You may run your tests using the phpunit
or php vendor/bin/phpunit
commands.
The Vendor Directory
The vendor
directory contains your Composer dependencies.
The App Directory
The majority of your application is housed in the app
directory. By default, this directory is namespaced under
App
and is autoloaded by Composer using the PSR-4 autoloading
standard.
The app
directory contains a variety of additional
directories such as Console
, Http
, and
Providers
. Think of the Console
and
Http
directories as providing an API into the core of your
application. The HTTP protocol and CLI are both mechanisms to interact
with your application, but do not actually contain application logic. In
other words, they are two ways of issuing commands to your application.
The Console
directory contains all of your Artisan
commands, while the Http
directory contains your
controllers, middleware, and requests.
A variety of other directories will be generated inside the
app
directory as you use the make
Artisan
commands to generate classes. So, for example, the app/Jobs
directory will not exist until you execute the make:job
Artisan command to generate a job class.
Tip!! Many of the classes in the
app
directory can be generated by Artisan via commands. To review the available commands, run thephp artisan list make
command in your terminal.
The Broadcasting Directory
The Broadcasting
directory contains all of the broadcast
channel classes for your application. These classes are generated using
the make:channel
command. This directory does not exist by
default, but will be created for you when you create your first channel.
To learn more about channels, check out the documentation on event broadcasting.
The Console Directory
The Console
directory contains all of the custom Artisan
commands for your application. These commands may be generated using the
make:command
command. This directory also houses your
console kernel, which is where your custom Artisan commands are
registered and your scheduled tasks are
defined.
The Events Directory
This directory does not exist by default, but will be created for you
by the event:generate
and make:event
Artisan
commands. The Events
directory houses event classes. Events may be used to alert other
parts of your application that a given action has occurred, providing a
great deal of flexibility and decoupling.
The Exceptions Directory
The Exceptions
directory contains your application's
exception handler and is also a good place to place any exceptions
thrown by your application. If you would like to customize how your
exceptions are logged or rendered, you should modify the
Handler
class in this directory.
The Http Directory
The Http
directory contains your controllers,
middleware, and form requests. Almost all of the logic to handle
requests entering your application will be placed in this directory.
The Jobs Directory
This directory does not exist by default, but will be created for you
if you execute the make:job
Artisan command. The
Jobs
directory houses the queueable
jobs for your application. Jobs may be queued by your application or
run synchronously within the current request lifecycle. Jobs that run
synchronously during the current request are sometimes referred to as
"commands" since they are an implementation of the command
pattern.
The Listeners Directory
This directory does not exist by default, but will be created for you
if you execute the event:generate
or
make:listener
Artisan commands. The Listeners
directory contains the classes that handle your events. Event listeners receive an event instance
and perform logic in response to the event being fired. For example, a
UserRegistered
event might be handled by a
SendWelcomeEmail
listener.
The Mail Directory
This directory does not exist by default, but will be created for you
if you execute the make:mail
Artisan command. The
Mail
directory contains all of your classes that represent
emails sent by your application. Mail objects allow you to encapsulate
all of the logic of building an email in a single, simple class that may
be sent using the Mail::send
method.
The Notifications Directory
This directory does not exist by default, but will be created for you
if you execute the make:notification
Artisan command. The
Notifications
directory contains all of the "transactional"
notifications that are sent by your application, such as simple
notifications about events that happen within your application.
Laravel's notification features abstracts sending notifications over a
variety of drivers such as email, Slack, SMS, or stored in a
database.
The Policies Directory
This directory does not exist by default, but will be created for you
if you execute the make:policy
Artisan command. The
Policies
directory contains the authorization policy
classes for your application. Policies are used to determine if a user
can perform a given action against a resource. For more information,
check out the authorization
documentation.
The Providers Directory
The Providers
directory contains all of the service providers for your application.
Service providers bootstrap your application by binding services in the
service container, registering events, or performing any other tasks to
prepare your application for incoming requests.
In a fresh Laravel application, this directory will already contain several providers. You are free to add your own providers to this directory as needed.
The Rules Directory
This directory does not exist by default, but will be created for you
if you execute the make:rule
Artisan command. The
Rules
directory contains the custom validation rule objects
for your application. Rules are used to encapsulate complicated
validation logic in a simple object. For more information, check out the
validation documentation.