- How do I install and set up Laravel Themer in a Laravel 11 or 12 app?
- Install it with composer require alizharb/laravel-themer, then run php artisan themer:install. The installer publishes config/themer.php and can optionally patch your vite.config.js with the themerLoader plugin. After that you can scaffold your first theme with the theme:make wizard and it will appear in the configured themes path with its own theme.json manifest.
- Does Laravel Themer support Livewire 4 components and layouts?
- Yes, Livewire 4 support is listed as first-class: the package extends make:livewire with a --theme flag and resolves theme-aware component layouts. Blade directives such as @theme_asset and @theme_vite work inside Livewire views as well. Because the supported window is narrow (Laravel 11/12 plus Livewire 4), confirm the exact tested matrix before committing on a Livewire 3 codebase.
- How does the Laravel Themer view resolution cascade actually work?
- Themes are filesystem-scoped modules with a theme.json manifest, and view lookup follows an Active theme to Parent theme to Application cascade. That means your existing app views remain the final fallback, so you can convert one directory at a time without breaking anything. The trade-off is that figuring out which file rendered a page becomes less obvious, so plan to lean on view debugging when templates go missing.
- What is the zero-IO production cache and how do I invalidate it after a deploy?
- The package flattens each theme inheritance chain at boot and serializes it into a single PHP array, avoiding filesystem lookups on every request. Because that cache is a boot-time artifact, you must regenerate it as part of your deploy pipeline with the theme:cache command. Forgetting that step after changing a theme.json or adding a theme is the classic stale-cache footgun.
- Can I use Laravel Themer without installing laravel-modular?
- Yes for standalone filesystem themes, since the core cascade and Vite isolation do not require it. Modular theme discovery specifically depends on laravel-modular, and the Filament admin surface comes from a separate package in the same family. If you want modular themes or a Filament UI, budget for a two or three package commitment rather than a single dependency.
- Does Laravel Themer work with Laravel 10 or Livewire 3?
- The package targets Laravel 11 and 12 with Livewire 4, and that is a deliberately narrow current-version window. There is no indication of Livewire 3 or older Laravel support, so it is a poor fit for legacy apps or Inertia-only front ends. Check the composer constraints on Packagist before trying to install it on an older stack.
- How do per-theme Vite builds and NPM workspaces work in Laravel Themer?
- Each theme can ship its own package.json and vite.config.js, giving fully isolated asset builds, while NPM workspaces share dependencies to keep node_modules lean. The theme:dev and theme:build commands launch dev servers or compile assets for a specific theme. Watch for divergence between a theme package.json and the root one, since that can silently break the build graph.
- How do I activate a theme, and can I avoid editing .env in a container?
- Activation is normally done with theme:activate, which sets the active theme and mutates the .env file. That is operationally awkward on immutable or containerized infrastructure where the filesystem is read-only or rebuilt on each deploy. If you need config or database driven activation, verify with the maintainer whether the active theme can be resolved from config rather than environment file mutation.
- Is Laravel Themer suitable for multi-tenant per-tenant theming?
- It can work for multi-tenant branding, but the documented approach is request-scoped switching via something like Themer::forTheme rather than native per-tenant assignment. There is no clear out-of-the-box story for persisting a theme per tenant in the database. Test this against your tenancy package early, because .env based activation will not work for dynamic tenants.
- Is Laravel Themer production ready, and what are the alternatives?
- The architecture is sound, but adoption signals are thin: single-digit GitHub stars, no dependents, and a solo maintainer, so bus factor and long-term support are the real risks. If theming is peripheral, a single Blade layout plus CSS variable swapping is cheaper and safer. If you have genuinely divergent surfaces such as white-label or a theme marketplace, it can still beat a bespoke layer, but ask for reference production users and a support commitment first.