Laravel 13 Release Breakdown — New Features in Minutes

[00:00] Laravel 13 is now released.

[00:03] >> [music]

[00:03] >> Um they just announced today that it's

[00:05] official. Um

[00:07] not a whole lot of features, really, but

[00:08] uh PHP 8.3 is now the minimum required.

[00:12] >> [music]

[00:12] >> Uh it's got new attributes, Laravel AI,

[00:15] and a smoother upgrade path. So, let's

[00:17] dive in and take a look [music] at some

[00:19] of these new features. So, here on

[00:20] Laravel News, we covered them, um but I

[00:23] think the highlight is [music] this

[00:25] first intro sentence from the Laravel

[00:27] team themselves. It says, "Much of our

[00:29] focus during the release cycle has been

[00:31] on minimizing breaking changes. [music]

[00:33] Instead, we have dedicated ourselves to

[00:35] shipping continuous quality-of-life

[00:37] improvements throughout the [music] year

[00:38] that do not break existing

[00:40] applications."

[00:42] Um and what that means for me is, you

[00:44] know, as Laravel has sort of [music]

[00:46] matured where it, you know, version 13

[00:48] now,

[00:49] uh they're trying to prevent [music]

[00:51] a lot of breaking changes, you know,

[00:52] they're wanting the upgrade to be

[00:54] simple, they're wanting to, you know,

[00:56] not make [music] anything drastic like

[00:59] they probably have done in the past. You

[01:01] know, I'm thinking of like, I think it's

[01:02] [music] version 4 to version 5 was kind

[01:04] of a huge upgrade.

[01:06] Maybe 5 to 6, but there was just two or

[01:08] three in there that were kind of [music]

[01:10] really difficult upgrades.

[01:12] But uh from 12 to 13, it's not a whole

[01:15] lot of breaking stuff. So, that's kind

[01:17] of cool, and it also, you know, it's

[01:19] sort of better for the whole ecosystem

[01:20] as a whole because,

[01:21] >> [music]

[01:22] >> you know, packages and your your apps

[01:24] and everything in between can now

[01:26] upgrade pretty smoothly on down. So, PHP

[01:30] 8.3 is now the minimum required. Um

[01:34] Laravel drops support [music] for 8.2.

[01:37] Um 8.3 is actually, you know, been out.

[01:41] I think it's been out a while now, so it

[01:43] shouldn't be that hard of an upgrade,

[01:44] but you should definitely want to stay

[01:45] up on [music] the latest PHP versions.

[01:48] So, make note of that. That is one

[01:50] probably big [music] change that could

[01:52] be um a little annoying for you if

[01:55] you're, you know, if you're running

[01:55] [music] like PHP 8.1 or 8.2 or something

[01:58] like that. And then the biggest, [music]

[02:01] I guess, change, but this is not really

[02:03] like um it's fully optional and it's

[02:06] backward [music] compatible, but

[02:07] first-class support for PHP attributes.

[02:10] And I have an example here. So, this is

[02:12] actually going to change for models,

[02:14] jobs, console commands, and

[02:16] >> [music]

[02:16] >> I've got 15 other locations. So,

[02:19] basically what it does is here's an

[02:20] example model. You can see, you know,

[02:22] you can now define the table.

[02:24] Uh this [music] was In this example, the

[02:26] users table, um your key,

[02:30] key type, and whether it's incrementing.

[02:32] >> [music]

[02:32] >> And then the hidden field is password,

[02:34] and fillable is name and email.

[02:36] So, that's pretty cool, and it kind of

[02:38] does tighten it up a little bit.

[02:40] >> [music]

[02:40] >> Um but again, completely optional in

[02:42] your own apps. Um if you don't want to

[02:44] use this, you don't have to, but it's

[02:47] totally up to you. Another big change is

[02:49] [music]

[02:50] the Laravel SDK AI SDK. So, they've been

[02:53] pushing a lot on AI stuff in this last,

[02:55] I don't know, [music] 6 months.

[02:57] Um and all those, you know, like Boost

[03:00] and a couple of the other things are

[03:01] all, you know, [music] separate

[03:03] packages. So, even though Laravel 13's

[03:05] launched um

[03:07] you know, this, I guess,

[03:09] >> [music]

[03:10] >> is technically already been out, but now

[03:11] it's official with Laravel 13. But I'm

[03:14] assuming they're going to go down

[03:15] different paths, [music] you know, like

[03:17] when they when they come up with updates

[03:19] on those, they'll they'll come out on

[03:20] their own versus, [music] you know,

[03:23] Laravel 13.1 for a feature of the

[03:25] Laravel AI SDK. So, basically completely

[03:28] independent now, they can upgrade or do

[03:29] whatever in between. [music] First-party

[03:31] JSON API resources, um

[03:34] uh so, again, more more stuff for API

[03:37] back end, queue routing.

[03:40] >> [music]

[03:40] >> Um you can see here an example.

[03:43] Native vector query support, [music]

[03:46] um and then here's an example where

[03:48] vector similar to embedding and the

[03:50] wineries [music] in Napa Valley.

[03:52] Uh next up, cache touch, and you can

[03:55] extend [music]

[03:57] um

[03:58] extends a cached item's time to live

[04:01] without fetching or restoring the value.

[04:03] [music]

[04:03] So, that's pretty cool. And then

[04:05] finally, the support timeline. Uh we're

[04:08] on Laravel 13 now. PHP 8.3 to 8.5, and

[04:12] [music]

[04:13] it gets bug fixes in until Q3 of 2027,

[04:17] and security fixes till Q1 of 2028. So,

[04:20] [music] you'll get 2 years of those

[04:21] security fixes.

[04:23] Um but we have the whole support

[04:24] timeline [music] here. The main thing

[04:26] though is Laravel 12, you have 1 more

[04:29] year left of security fixes, but the bug

[04:32] fixes are only going to last until

[04:34] August of this year. [music]

[04:35] So, you know, if you haven't upgraded

[04:37] yet, of course you haven't cuz we're

[04:39] just announcing it today, but if you

[04:41] haven't upgraded by August 13th, you

[04:43] need to get that done.

[04:44] Um and then finally, upgrading to

[04:46] Laravel 13.

[04:47] >> [music]

[04:47] >> Lar- if you're on Laravel 12, they do

[04:50] have a Boost command to upgrade. I

[04:52] >> [music]

[04:52] >> I haven't used it yet. I'm assuming it

[04:54] just sort of goes through and does it by

[04:57] AI, but if you want something a little

[04:58] bit more like in-depth is [music]

[05:00] Laravel Shift. Um that's been out for,

[05:03] man, quite a few years now, but what it

[05:05] does is it tries to bring your entire

[05:06] application up to all the 13 standards.

[05:09] >> [music]

[05:09] >> Um and it it does it through pull

[05:12] requests. It's it's pretty sweet. That's

[05:13] what I've always used, and I'll continue

[05:15] to use that going forward. [music] So,

[05:16] check out Laravel Shift if you want an

[05:18] easy way of upgrading.

[05:20] Um so, that's sort of the highlights of

[05:22] Laravel 13. It's not a huge update, um

[05:25] but it is, you know, it [music] is

[05:27] following that yearly major version

[05:30] update cycle. So, for those that are not

[05:33] familiar, Laravel 13 is now, Laravel 14

[05:36] [music] will be

[05:38] Q1 of 2027 now.

[05:41] So, it always runs this way, and then

[05:43] every week we seem to get like minor

[05:45] updates and sort of new features if they

[05:47] come about, but they try to kind of

[05:49] limit breaking changes for the major

[05:51] versions. And in this case, we just

[05:53] didn't have that many this year.

[05:55] Um so, go and get upgrading and go and

[05:57] check everything out. Uh you can read

[06:00] about it on our website,

[06:01] laravel-news.com/laravel-13-released.

[06:06] And happy updating.