Valet Linux Plus Laravel Package

Product Decisions This Supports

• Developer environment standardization (Linux). valet-linux-plus is the Linux fork of Laravel Valet — a local development environment tool, not a runtime dependency. The decision it informs is "what do our Laravel engineers run locally," which shows up in onboarding time, environment drift, and "works on my machine" bug volume rather than in customer-facing features.
• Build vs. buy vs. adopt. Three realistic options for a Linux Laravel team: this fork (zero-config, free, Valet-compatible), Laravel Sail / DDEV (Docker-based, higher parity, more setup), or hand-rolled nginx + php-fpm (maximum control, maximum maintenance). This package wins when the team values speed-to-first-commit over strict production parity.
• Framework upgrade planning. 2.0.3 explicitly adds Laravel 11 and 12 support. That is a support-matrix signal: it keeps the tool viable through our next framework upgrade window and removes it as a blocker in a Laravel 12 roadmap conversation.
• Fleet consistency. Agencies or orgs with mixed OS developers can standardize on Valet conventions (.test domains, per-site TLS, DB and mail helpers) across macOS (official Valet/Herd) and Linux (this fork), reducing the number of documented local-setup paths the platform team maintains.
• Not a product roadmap input. Nothing here changes shipped product behavior, performance, or security posture. Treat it as a developer-productivity line item with a cost-avoidance justification, not a feature enabler.

When to Consider This Package

Adopt when:

• The team develops Laravel primarily on Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch) and wants near-zero-config local sites with .test hostnames, trusted local TLS, and built-in DB/mail helpers.
• Onboarding time is a measured pain point — this collapses a multi-hour LAMP/LEMP setup into a short install.
• You want consistency with macOS teammates already using Valet conventions, without asking Linux developers to run a different mental model.
• Budget is zero and the team accepts community-supported tooling.
• You are on Laravel 11 or 12 and want a local stack that explicitly tracks that support window.

Look elsewhere when:

• Developers are on macOS or Windows — use official Laravel Valet or Laravel Herd; this fork adds nothing there.
• You need production parity: queues, workers, Redis, Meilisearch, multi-service orchestration. Use Laravel Sail, DDEV, or Docker Compose. Valet-family tools intentionally abstract away the service topology, which is exactly what you don't want when debugging infra-adjacent bugs.
• You require vendor support, SLAs, or a security review with a named maintainer commitment. This is a community fork with a small contributor base and no official Laravel backing — that is a real, if low-severity, supply-chain consideration for a tool that runs with local privileges and edits host config.
• The org mandates reproducible, containerized dev environments for compliance or audit reasons.
• The project is non-Laravel PHP or a polyglot monorepo — the value proposition is Laravel-specific.

Specific to 2.0.3: this is a patch release with no breaking changes. Two things matter operationally — Laravel 12 support (unblocks upgrade planning) and the deprecated http2 config fix (removes an emerging source of broken local TLS on newer Valet conventions). Neither is a reason to adopt on its own; both are reasons not to defer a pending adoption decision.

How to Pitch It (Stakeholders)

For executives: This is free, open-source developer tooling for our Linux engineers — the Linux counterpart to the Mac tooling the rest of the team already uses. It cuts local environment setup from hours to minutes and reduces environment-related bugs. There is no license cost, no customer-facing surface, and no lock-in: it runs only on developer laptops and can be replaced with a containerized setup if it ever becomes a problem. The 2.0.3 release is a maintenance update that keeps it compatible with Laravel 11 and 12, so it will not become an obstacle to our next framework upgrade.

For engineering leadership: Version 2.0.3 is a patch — Laravel 11/12 support plus a fix for deprecated http2 configs that were breaking local TLS on newer setups. No breaking changes, no migration work. Recommended posture: pin the version, adopt it for Linux developers who want it, and keep a documented Docker/Sail fallback for anyone who needs production-parity services or for CI. Important boundary: CI and staging must not depend on this tool — it is a local convenience, and the escape hatch should be written down before we need it. Risk to track is maintenance: small contributor pool, no vendor SLA, and it modifies host-level config, so it belongs in the "dev-only, swappable" bucket rather than the platform-critical bucket.