Laravel Boost Phpstorm Copilot Laravel Package

Getting Started

This package is a thin adapter that registers a Laravel Boost custom agent profile targeted at PhpStorm's GitHub Copilot plugin. It does not replace Boost — it teaches Boost how to hand off guidelines and an MCP server to Copilot in PhpStorm. Treat it as a configuration layer, not a standalone tool.

Prerequisites before you touch it:

• Laravel Boost installed (composer require laravel/boost --dev) and able to run php artisan boost:install. If Boost itself is not working with your editor of choice, fix that first.
• PhpStorm with the GitHub Copilot plugin updated to a build that supports MCP / agent mode. Ask-mode Copilot will work but you lose most of the value.
• A PHP binary on your PATH that PhpStorm's terminal can resolve — the MCP server config this package publishes typically shells out to PHP.

Minimal flow:

composer require revolution/laravel-boost-phpstorm-copilot --dev
php artisan boost:install

When boost:install prompts for an agent, you should see the PhpStorm/Copilot profile from this package alongside the built-ins. Select it, then publish any config it exposes (php artisan vendor:publish --tag=boost-phpstorm-copilot or similar) so you can inspect and commit the generated agent definition and guidelines.

First use case to validate the wiring: open the project in PhpStorm, switch Copilot chat to Agent mode, and ask something that forces it to use Laravel-specific context — e.g. "Generate a resourceful PostController with form requests and a policy, following this project's conventions." If it produces Laravel-idiomatic code and can call Boost tools (route listing, tinker, doc search), the integration is live. If it only answers from generic training data, the guidelines or MCP server did not load — see Gotchas.

Implementation Patterns

Pin the agent config into the repo. The whole point of the custom agent is that it is deterministic. Commit the published agent file and the Boost guidelines directory so every developer on the team gets identical Copilot behaviour. Do not rely on each developer running boost:install and picking options by hand.

Layer your guidelines, don't replace them. Keep Boost's official Laravel guidelines file as the base and add a project-specific file (conventions, directory layout, naming, test strategy). The custom agent's value is in pointing Copilot at both, not in overriding Laravel's defaults. If the package publishes a single guidelines path, append rather than rewrite.

Use agent mode for scaffolding, ask mode for explanation. In agent mode Copilot can drive the Boost MCP server — reading routes, running tinker, searching docs. That is where the integration pays off: "list the routes for the admin middleware group and write feature tests that hit each one." In ask mode you get reasoning over injected context only, which is fine for design questions but wastes the MCP setup.

Keep the agent aligned across editors. If some of the team uses Cursor or Claude Code and others use PhpStorm, install this package in addition to the standard Boost setup. Both profiles should read from the same guidelines source so a rule added in one editor is honoured in the other. Drifting guideline sets are the most common source of "it works on my machine" AI behaviour.

Wire it into onboarding. Add the two composer/artisan commands to your project README or a make setup target. Because the package has no dependents and a very small user base, new hires will not discover it — make the setup explicit.

Version-pin in composer.json. With three stars and zero dependents, treat every release as potentially breaking. Use a caret on a known-good minor rather than *, and review the diff on upgrade.

Gotchas and Tips

MCP connection is the usual failure point. If Copilot in PhpStorm appears to ignore Boost tools, check the MCP server entry in the published config: it needs an absolute PHP path or a php binary resolvable from PhpStorm's environment (which often differs from your shell). Restart PhpStorm after changing MCP config — the plugin caches connections per window.

Guidelines are not auto-reloaded. Boost writes/refreshes guideline files, but Copilot reads them at chat-session start. After running boost:update or editing guidelines, start a new chat. Mid-session confusion ("why is it still using the old convention?") is almost always this.

Clear Laravel's config cache when toggling the agent. If boost:install seems to ignore the custom agent after you have changed config, run php artisan config:clear and re-run the install prompt. Package discovery can also go stale — composer dump-autoload is a cheap first diagnostic.

Watch for guideline bloat. Custom agents encourage appending rules. Copilot's effective context is finite; once the guidelines file grows past a few hundred lines, quality degrades and the model starts ignoring later sections. Keep project guidelines to hard rules and move explainers into linked docs.

Do not assume the package's agent file is complete. Because it is a small, early package, verify what it actually registers by opening the published file. You may find it only sets a name and guidelines path with no MCP tool list — in which case you still need Boost's MCP server configured separately for tool use.

Extension points to look for: the published agent definition (customise the system prompt / guideline references), a guidelines publishing tag (add your own file), and the MCP server config (add extra tools or change the PHP invocation). Prefer overriding via the published files rather than patching the vendor package, so composer update stays safe.

Debugging checklist when it silently does nothing: (1) php artisan boost:install lists the agent, (2) published config exists and is committed, (3) PhpStorm Copilot is in Agent mode, (4) MCP server starts without error in PhpStorm's MCP log, (5) new chat session opened. Failing step 1 means a Boost/version problem, not this package.