Laravel 12 Tutorial for Beginners — Step-by-Step

 Below is a clean, copy-ready tutorial you can post on your website. It walks a beginner through building a simple CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) app with Laravel 12 — including commands, code snippets, and helpful tips.

Introduction

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to build a simple blog-like CRUD application using Laravel 12. We'll create posts with titles and content, list them, edit them, and delete them. This guide assumes you know basic terminal usage and have a development environment set up.

Requirements

• PHP 8.1 or newer

• Composer

• MySQL or MariaDB (or any supported database)

• Optional: Node.js & NPM (for frontend assets / compiling CSS/JS)

Step 1 — Create a new Laravel project

Run:

composer create-project laravel/laravel:^12.0 my-laravel-app
cd my-laravel-app

Start the development server:

php artisan serve

Visit http://localhost:8000 to confirm Laravel is running.

Step 2 — Project structure (quick guide)

• app/ — Models, Controllers, core logic

• routes/ — web.php (web routes), api.php (API routes)

• resources/views/ — Blade templates (HTML views)

• database/migrations/ — Migrations (DB schema)

Step 3 — Database Setup

Edit .env:

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=laravel12
DB_USERNAME=root
DB_PASSWORD=

Step 4 — Create Post model + migration

Generate a model with migration:

php artisan make:model Post -m

Open the migration file in database/migrations/ (it will be timestamped) and edit the up() method:

public function up(): void
{
    Schema::create('posts', function (Blueprint $table) {
        $table->id();
        $table->string('title');
        $table->text('content');
        $table->timestamps();
    });
}

Run migrations:

php artisan migrate

Step 5 — Add mass assignment protection to the model

Open app/Models/Post.php and add $fillable So you can use Post::create() safely:

namespace App\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class Post extends Model
{
    protected $fillable = ['title', 'content'];
}

Step 6 — Generate Controller (resource)

Create a resource controller to handle CRUD:

php artisan make:controller PostController --resource

This command creates app/Http/Controllers/PostController.php with boilerplate methods (index, create, store, show, edit, update, destroy).

Step 7 — Implement controller methods

Replace the controller methods with the following (concise implementation):

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use App\Models\Post;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class PostController extends Controller
{
    public function index()
    {
        // Optionally paginate: Post::latest()->paginate(10);
        $posts = Post::latest()->get();
        return view('posts.index', compact('posts'));
    }

    public function create()
    {
        return view('posts.create');
    }

    public function store(Request $request)
    {
        $request->validate([
            'title'   => 'required|max:255',
            'content' => 'required',
        ]);

        Post::create($request->only('title', 'content'));

        return redirect()->route('posts.index')
                         ->with('success', 'Post created successfully.');
    }

    public function show(Post $post)
    {
        return view('posts.show', compact('post'));
    }

    public function edit(Post $post)
    {
        return view('posts.edit', compact('post'));
    }

    public function update(Request $request, Post $post)
    {
        $request->validate([
            'title'   => 'required|max:255',
            'content' => 'required',
        ]);

        $post->update($request->only('title', 'content'));

        return redirect()->route('posts.index')
                         ->with('success', 'Post updated successfully.');
    }

    public function destroy(Post $post)
    {
        $post->delete();

        return redirect()->route('posts.index')
                         ->with('success', 'Post deleted successfully.');
    }
}

Step 8 — Add resource routes

Open routes/web.php and add:

use App\Http\Controllers\PostController;

Route::resource('posts', PostController::class);
Route::get('/', function () {
    return redirect()->route('posts.index');
});

php artisan route:list will now show all RESTful routes for posts.

Step 9 — Create Blade views (basic)

Create a resources/views/posts folder and add the following minimal templates.

resources/views/layouts/app.blade.php (master layout)

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title>Laravel 12 CRUD</title>
    <link href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/bootstrap@5.3.0/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet">
</head>
<body>
    <div class="container py-4">
        @if(session('success'))
            <div class="alert alert-success">{{ session('success') }}</div>
        @endif

        @yield('content')
    </div>
</body>
</html>

resources/views/posts/index.blade.php

@extends('layouts.app')

@section('content')
    <div class="d-flex justify-content-between align-items-center mb-3">
        <h1>Posts</h1>
        <a href="{{ route('posts.create') }}" class="btn btn-primary">Create Post</a>
    </div>

    @foreach($posts as $post)
        <div class="card mb-2">
            <div class="card-body">
                <h5 class="card-title">{{ $post->title }}</h5>
                <p class="card-text">{{ Str::limit($post->content, 200) }}</p>
                <a href="{{ route('posts.show', $post) }}" class="btn btn-sm btn-outline-secondary">View</a>
                <a href="{{ route('posts.edit', $post) }}" class="btn btn-sm btn-warning">Edit</a>

                <form action="{{ route('posts.destroy', $post) }}" method="POST" class="d-inline"
                      onsubmit="return confirm('Delete this post?');">
                    @csrf
                    @method('DELETE')
                    <button class="btn btn-sm btn-danger">Delete</button>
                </form>
            </div>
        </div>
    @endforeach
@endsection

resources/views/posts/create.blade.php and edit.blade.php

You can use the same form partial for create/edit.

resources/views/posts/create.blade.php:

@extends('layouts.app')

@section('content')
    <h1>Create Post</h1>

    @if ($errors->any())
        <div class="alert alert-danger">
            <ul class="mb-0">
                @foreach ($errors->all() as $error)
                    <li>{{ $error }}</li>
                @endforeach
            </ul>
        </div>
    @endif

    <form action="{{ route('posts.store') }}" method="POST">
        @csrf
        <div class="mb-3">
            <label class="form-label">Title</label>
            <input name="title" class="form-control" value="{{ old('title') }}">
        </div>

        <div class="mb-3">
            <label class="form-label">Content</label>
            <textarea name="content" rows="6" class="form-control">{{ old('content') }}</textarea>
        </div>

        <button class="btn btn-primary">Save</button>
    </form>
@endsection

resources/views/posts/edit.blade.php:

@extends('layouts.app')

@section('content')
    <h1>Edit Post</h1>

    @if ($errors->any())
        <div class="alert alert-danger">
            <ul class="mb-0">
                @foreach ($errors->all() as $error)
                    <li>{{ $error }}</li>
                @endforeach
            </ul>
        </div>
    @endif

    <form action="{{ route('posts.update', $post) }}" method="POST">
        @csrf
        @method('PUT')

        <div class="mb-3">
            <label class="form-label">Title</label>
            <input name="title" class="form-control" value="{{ old('title', $post->title) }}">
        </div>

        <div class="mb-3">
            <label class="form-label">Content</label>
            <textarea name="content" rows="6" class="form-control">{{ old('content', $post->content) }}</textarea>
        </div>

        <button class="btn btn-primary">Update</button>
    </form>
@endsection

resources/views/posts/show.blade.php

@extends('layouts.app')

@section('content')
    <h1>{{ $post->title }}</h1>
    <p>{{ $post->content }}</p>
    <a href="{{ route('posts.index') }}" class="btn btn-secondary">Back</a>
@endsection

Step 10 — Test the app

• Visit /posts — should show list (initially empty)

• Create a post via /posts/create

• Edit and delete posts via the UI

If you encounter validation errors, the forms will display them (we have included server-side validation in the controller).

Step 11: Next Steps

• Add Authentication: php artisan make:auth

• Learn Laravel Policies & Gates

• Add Role & Permission Management

• Protect Routes with Middleware

• Use Blade Directives for Authorization

• Customize User Access Based on Roles