Managing apps

Besides creating apps, Leaf CLI also helps you manage your apps. This includes things like running your app, dependency management, running commands, and more. This guide covers all such features.

Running your app

You can run your app by navigating into your app's directory and running the leaf serve command. This will start a development server and serve your app on localhost:5500.

cd my-app
leaf serve

You can also specify a port to run your app on by passing the --port or -p flag:

leaf serve --port=8080

The serve command also has a --watch flag that watches your app for changes and automatically reloads your app when changes are detected:

leaf serve --watch

Note: The --watch flag is only available when running your app in development mode and uses nodejs to watch your app for changes.

If you want to run your application from a different directory, you can pass the path to the directory as an argument:

leaf serve /path/to/your/app

Automatic dependency installation

When running your app, Leaf will automatically try to install missing dependencies if no vendor directory is found in your app's directory.

Running commands

Leaf CLI also allows you to run commands in your app's directory. If you have a command in your composer.json file, you can run it using the leaf run command:

leaf run my-command

Dependency management

Leaf CLI also has commands built on top of Composer to help you manage your app's dependencies. Leaf has a whole ecosystem of packages that are treated as first-class citizens in the Leaf ecosystem, and are given special treatment by the CLI. This makes working with Leaf packages a breeze, but also allows you to work with any Composer package.

Are you a visual learner?

This video will help you understand how to work with packages on the Leaf CLI.

Installing packages

This cli tool also adds a feature to install leaf packages from composer.

leaf install leafs/ui

If you are installing a leaf module or package, you can leave out the leafs/ part.

leaf install ui

You can also pass in a bunch of packages to install at once.

leaf install ui db illuminate/support

Versioning

Leaf CLI also allows you to install a particular version of any package using @

leaf install ui@1.0 illuminate/support@9.0.2

Uninstalling packages

This works the same way as installing packages, but you use the uninstall command instead.

leaf uninstall ui
leaf uninstall ui db illuminate/support

View commands

Leaf CLI also allows you to create and interact with frontend setups using the view commands. You can scaffold frontend setups like React, Vue, templating engines, build tools, and more.

Scaffolding views

Leaf CLI ships with a view:install command that allows you to set up React, Vue, and templating engines like Blade and BareUI. You can use the --react, --vue, --blade, and --bareui options to scaffold your frontend setup.

leaf view:install --react

You can also use the --vite and --tailwind options to scaffold Vite and Tailwind respectively.

Running frontend setups

Since Leaf CLI is a backend tool, it doesn't come with a frontend server. However, you can use the view:dev command to run your frontend setup which may include in a dev server for your frontend.

leaf view:dev

Building frontend setups

You can also use the view:build command to build your frontend setup for production.

leaf view:build

API Reference

This is the full list of commands you can use to manage your app's dependencies:

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| |__/ -_) _` |  _| | (__| |__ | | 
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Usage:
  command [options] [arguments]

Options:
  -h, --help            Display help for the given command. When no command is given display help for the list command
  -q, --quiet           Do not output any message
  -V, --version         Display this application version
      --ansi|--no-ansi  Force (or disable --no-ansi) ANSI output
  -n, --no-interaction  Do not ask any interactive question
  -v|vv|vvv, --verbose  Increase the verbosity of messages: 1 for normal output, 2 for more verbose output and 3 for debug

Available commands:
  completion    Dump the shell completion script
  create        [init|new] Create a new Leaf PHP project
  deploy        [publish] Deploy your leaf project
  help          Display help for a command
  install       Add a new package to your leaf app
  interact      Interact with your application
  list          List commands
  run           Run a script in your composer.json
  serve         Run your Leaf app
  test          Test your leaf application through leaf alchemy
  ui            [gui] Start the Leaf CLI GUI process
  uninstall     Uninstall a  package
  update        Update leaf cli to the latest version
 view
  view:build    Run your frontend dev server
  view:dev      [view:serve] Run your frontend dev server
  view:install  Run a script in your composer.json