README

Laravel Artisan Watcher

A Laravel package that provides file watching functionality to automatically execute a CLI or Artisan command when files change. This is useful for automatically running tests, linting, or any other command when your files are modified during development.

Warning

Very early alpha — pure proof of concept.
Believe it or not, ~95% of this package’s code is AI-generated under 10 minutes with a single prompt!
For the full story, check out the PR.

Installation

You can install the package via composer:

composer require plakhin/laravel-artisan-watcher --dev

Usage

The package adds an artisan watch command that you can use to watch for file changes and trigger commands:

# Watch current directory and run tests when PHP files change
php artisan watch --command="php artisan test"

# Watch a specific directory for changes to JS files
php artisan watch app/Http --extensions=js --command="npm run lint"

# Watch with custom polling interval (in seconds)
php artisan watch --interval=2 --command="php artisan test"

# Exclude multiple directories
php artisan watch --exclude=vendor,node_modules,storage --command="php artisan test"

Available Options

path: The directory to watch (default: current directory)
--command: The command to run when files change (required)
--interval: Polling interval in seconds (default: 1)
--extensions: Comma-separated list of file extensions to watch (default: php)
--exclude: Comma-separated list of directories to exclude (default: vendor,node_modules)

Example Use Cases

Automatically run tests when files change:

php artisan watch --command="php artisan test"

Automatically compile assets when JavaScript or SCSS files change:

php artisan watch resources --extensions=js,scss --command="npm run dev"

Run type checking when PHP files change:

php artisan watch --command="php artisan test:types"

Contributing

Contributions are welcome, and are accepted via pull requests. Please review these guidelines before submitting any pull requests.

Process

Fork the project
Create a new branch
Code, test, commit and push
Open a pull request detailing your changes.

Guidelines

Please ensure the coding style running composer lint.
Please keep the codebase modernized using automated refactors with Rector composer refactor.
Send a coherent commit history, making sure each individual commit in your pull request is meaningful.
You may need to rebase to avoid merge conflicts.
Please remember to follow SemVer.

Linting

composer lint

Refactoring with Rector

composer refactor

Testing

Run all tests:

composer test

Check code style:

composer test:lint

Check possible code improvements:

composer test:refactor

Check types:

composer test:types

Run Unit tests:

composer test:unit

plakhin / laravel-artisan-watcher

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