Laravel Mix

Workflow with Laravel

Let's review a general workflow that you can adopt for your own projects, from scratch.

Step 1: Install Laravel

laravel new my-app

Step 2: Install Node Dependencies

npm install

Step 3: Visit webpack.mix.js

Think of this file as your home base for all front-end configuration.

const mix = require('laravel-mix');

mix.js('resources/js/app.js', 'public/js')
    .sass('resources/sass/app.scss', 'public/css');

By default, we've enabled JavaScript ES2017 + module bundling, as well as Sass compilation.

Step 4: Compilation

Go ahead and compile these down:

node_modules/.bin/webpack --config=node_modules/laravel-mix/setup/webpack.config.js

Alternatively, if you have the NPM script within your package.json, you may do:

npm run dev

Once that finishes, you should now see:

  • ./public/js/app.js
  • ./public/css/app.css

Excellent! Next, let's get to work. To watch your JavaScript for changes, run:

npm run watch

Laravel ships with a ExampleComponent.vue file which you can find in the components folder:

./resources/js/components/ExampleComponent.vue

Give it a tweak, and wait for the OS notification, which signals that the compilation has completed. Great!

{tip} You may also use mix.browserSync('myapp.test') to automatically reload the browser when any relevant file in your Laravel app is changed.

Step 5: Update Your View

Again, Laravel ships with a welcome page. We can use this for our demo.
Update it to:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
    <head>
        <meta charset="utf-8">
        <title>Laravel</title>

        <link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ mix('css/app.css') }}">
    </head>
    <body>
        <div id="app">
            <example-component></example-component>
        </div>

        <script src="{{ mix('js/app.js') }}"></script>
    </body>
</html>

And reload the page in your browser. Great! It works.