Laravel Release Notes

Pull request by @TitasGailius

Pest test files get a real intellisense upgrade. The extension now reads your Pest config to generate helper docblocks that preserve the right $this type inside hooks and tests, surface pest()->extend(...) and pest()->use(...) setups for autocomplete and navigation, and expose any custom expectations you have defined. Generated docblocks live in storage/framework/testing/_pest.php, which is gitignored. Writing Pest tests in VS Code feels noticeably better.

Pull request by @cosmastech

Exception context is one of those things you only realize you needed after staring at production logs for hours. The new Illuminate\Log\Formatters\JsonFormatter ensures context() data on your custom exceptions actually shows up in structured logs, including context from previous exceptions in a chain. Wire it up in config/logging.php:

'formatter' => Illuminate\Log\Formatters\JsonFormatter::class,

Now an exception like this carries its enriched context all the way through to the log entry:

class MyException extends \RuntimeException
{
    public function context(): array
    {
        return [
            'luke' => 'cosmastech',
            'taylor' => 'taylorotwell',
        ];
    }
}

Whether the exception is sent through report() or written via Log::error() with an exception key, the structured payload now includes everything you put on the exception itself.

Pull request by @WendellAdriel

Building an API and tired of curl requests coming back as HTML? One line in bootstrap/app.php now treats broad Accept headers as JSON, so auth redirects, validation errors, and exception pages all serialize properly for clients that didn't ask for HTML:

return Application::configure(basePath: dirname(__DIR__))
    ->withRouting(
        web: __DIR__.'/../routes/web.php',
        commands: __DIR__.'/../routes/console.php',
    )
    ->prefersJsonResponses()
    ->create();

Clients that explicitly request text/html are left alone, and the original Accept value is preserved on X-Original-Accept if you need it for logging. Default behavior is unchanged unless you opt in.

Laravel 13 introduces the first-party Laravel AI SDK, providing a unified API for text generation, tool-calling agents, embeddings, audio, images, and vector-store integrations.

With the AI SDK, you can build provider-agnostic AI features while keeping a consistent, Laravel-native developer experience.

For example, a basic agent can be prompted with a single call:

use App\Ai\Agents\SalesCoach;

$response = SalesCoach::make()->prompt('Analyze this sales transcript...');

return (string) $response;

The Laravel AI SDK can also generate images, audio, and embeddings:

For visual generation use cases, the SDK offers a clean API for creating images from plain-language prompts:

use Laravel\Ai\Image;

$image = Image::of('A donut sitting on the kitchen counter')->generate();

$rawContent = (string) $image;

For voice experiences, you can synthesize natural-sounding audio from text for assistants, narrations, and accessibility features:

use Laravel\Ai\Audio;

$audio = Audio::of('I love coding with Laravel.')->generate();

$rawContent = (string) $audio;

And for semantic search and retrieval workflows, you can generate embeddings directly from strings:

use Illuminate\Support\Str;

$embeddings = Str::of('Napa Valley has great wine.')->toEmbeddings();

Laravel 13 continues to expand first-party PHP attribute support across the framework, making common configuration and behavioral concerns more declarative and colocated with your classes and methods.

Notable additions include controller and authorization attributes like #[Middleware] and #[Authorize], as well as queue-oriented job controls like #[Tries], #[Backoff], #[Timeout], and #[FailOnTimeout].

For example, controller middleware and policy checks can now be declared directly on classes and methods:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use App\Models\Comment;
use App\Models\Post;
use Illuminate\Routing\Attributes\Controllers\Authorize;
use Illuminate\Routing\Attributes\Controllers\Middleware;

#[Middleware('auth')]
class CommentController
{
    #[Middleware('subscribed')]
    #[Authorize('create', [Comment::class, 'post'])]
    public function store(Post $post)
    {
        // ...
    }
}

Additional attributes have also been introduced across Eloquent, events, notifications, validation, testing, and resource serialization APIs, giving you a consistent attribute-first option in more areas of the framework.

Laravel 13 deepens its semantic search story with native vector query support, embedding workflows, and related APIs documented across search, queries, and the AI SDK.

These features make it straightforward to build AI-powered search experiences using PostgreSQL + pgvector, including similarity search against embeddings generated directly from strings.

For example, you may run semantic similarity searches directly from the query builder:

$documents = DB::table('documents')
    ->whereVectorSimilarTo('embedding', 'Best wineries in Napa Valley')
    ->limit(10)
    ->get();

Inertia v3 is here — a ground-up rethink of the developer experience with a focus on zero-config setup, smaller bundles, and powerful new primitives for building modern apps. Axios and qs have been replaced with a built-in XHR client, SSR works automatically during development without a separate Node process, and a new Vite plugin eliminates nearly all boilerplate. On top of that, v3 introduces optimistic updates, instant visits, standalone HTTP requests via useHttp, layout props, and fine-grained exception handling — all designed to make Inertia apps feel faster to build and faster to use. Here's what's new: