Laravel Mix

Upgrade to Mix 6

npm install laravel-mix@latest

Review Your Dependencies

Laravel Mix 6 ships with support for the latest versions of numerous dependencies, including webpack 5, PostCSS 8, Vue Loader 16, and more. These are significant releases with their own sets of breaking changes. We've done our best to normalize these changes, but it's still particularly important that you take the time to fully test your build after upgrading to Mix 6.

Please review your package.json dependencies list for any third-party tools or plugins that may not yet be compatible with webpack 5 or PostCSS 8.

Update Your NPM Scripts

If your build throws an error such as Unknown argument: --hide-modules, the scripts section of your package.json file will need to be updated. The Webpack 5 CLI removed a number of options that your NPM scripts was likely referencing.

While you're at it, go ahead and switch over to the new Mix CLI.

Before

"scripts": {
    "development": "cross-env NODE_ENV=development node_modules/webpack/bin/webpack.js --progress --hide-modules --config=node_modules/laravel-mix/setup/webpack.config.js",
    "watch": "npm run development -- --watch",
    "watch-poll": "npm run watch -- --watch-poll",
    "hot": "cross-env NODE_ENV=development node_modules/webpack-dev-server/bin/webpack-dev-server.js --inline --hot --disable-host-check --config=node_modules/laravel-mix/setup/webpack.config.js",
    "production": "cross-env NODE_ENV=production node_modules/webpack/bin/webpack.js --no-progress --hide-modules --config=node_modules/laravel-mix/setup/webpack.config.js"
}

After

"scripts": {
    "development": "mix",
    "watch": "mix watch",
    "watch-poll": "mix watch -- --watch-options-poll=1000",
    "hot": "mix watch --hot",
    "production": "mix --production"
}

Watch Ignores node_modules

Mix will now ignore the node_modules/ directory when watching files for changes. This allows for a nice performance boost. However, if your project depends on that functionality, you may override the generated webpack configuration, like so:

mix.override((config) => {
    delete config.watchOptions;
});

API for JavaScript Frameworks

Laravel Mix was originally built to be quite opinionated. One of these opinions was that Vue support should be provided out of the box. Any call to mix.js() would instantly come with the benefit of Vue single-file components.

Though we're not removing Vue support by any stretch, we have extracted Vue to its own "featured flag": mix.vue().

Before

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

After

mix.js('resources/js/app.js', 'public/js').vue();

Think of this as your way of saying, "I want to compile my JavaScript and also turn on Vue support." Mix will automatically detect whether you have Vue 2 or 3 installed, based on your dependencies list. However, if you'd rather be explicit...

mix.js('resources/js/app.js', 'public/js').vue({ version: 2 });

The same is true for React.

Before

mix.react('resources/js/app.js', 'public/js');

After

mix.js('resources/js/app.js', 'public/js').react();

Vue Configuration

In line with the previous change, any Vue-specific configuration that was stored on the global Config object should now be passed directly to the mix.vue() command, like so:

Before

mix.js('resources/js/app.js', 'public/js').options({
    extractVueStyles: true,
    globalVueStyles: false
});

After

mix.js('resources/js/app.js', 'public/js').vue({
    extractStyles: true,
    globalStyles: false
});

{note} Please note the slight property name change: extractVueStyles => extractStyles.

Autoprefixer Options

If your webpack.mix.js applied custom Autoprefixer options, we've adjusted and simplified the configuration slightly.

Before

mix.options({
    autoprefixer: {
        enabled: true,
        options: { remove: false }
    }
});

After

mix.options({
    autoprefixer: { remove: false }
});

You can disable autoprefixer entirely, by setting it to false.

mix.options({
    autoprefixer: false
});

Unused Library Extraction

When given mix.extract(["library-1", "library-2"]), Mix would previously extract the referenced libraries to a file regardless of whether they're used in the main JS bundle. Mix 6, however, extracts only the libraries that are used by your JS bundle. This means that these libraries are now also eligible for tree-shaking.

With this change, libraries should no longer be duplicated in multiple files. For example, if you used vue in your JS bundle and called mix.extract(["vue"]) it was possible in some scenarios for Vue to be included in both the vendor file and your app JS file. This should no longer happen.

Should you need to preserve the behavior of all listed libraries being included, you'll need to create a file that imports the necessary libraries. It may also be necessary for you to disable tree-shaking optimizations.

Before

// webpack.mix.js
mix.extract(['library-1', 'library-2']);

After

// src/libraries.js
import 'library-1';
import 'library-2';

// webpack.mix.js
mix.js('src/libraries.js');

mix.extract(['library-1', 'library-2']);

mix.webpackConfig({
    optimization: {
        providedExports: false,
        sideEffects: false,
        usedExports: false
    }
});

Automatically Ignore node_modules

Mix will now ignore the node_modules directory when watching for changes. If your current webpack.mix.js file does this explicitly, it can now safely be removed.

Before

mix.js('src/app.js', 'dist');

mix.webpackConfig({
    watchOptions: { ignored: /node_modules/ }
});

After

mix.js('src/app.js', 'dist');