README

Laravel Nodeless is a Laravel starter kit for building Livewire applications without a frontend build system.

It starts from Laravel's official Livewire starter kit, then removes Node, npm, Vite, Tailwind compilation, and all related CI steps. The result is a PHP-first application scaffold that can be installed, developed, tested, and deployed with Composer and Laravel tooling only.

Philosophy

Laravel is productive because the framework gives you a cohesive, batteries-included path for building server-rendered applications. This starter kit keeps that path intentionally small:

• No Node runtime requirement.
• No npm install step.
• No Vite dev server.
• No frontend build step in local development, CI, or deployment.
• Livewire and Flux remain the primary UI layer.
• Static CSS, JavaScript, and fonts are checked in under public/build and served directly by Laravel.

This tradeoff is deliberate. You give up an editable Tailwind/Vite pipeline in exchange for a starter kit that works in PHP-only environments and has fewer moving parts.

What's Included

• Laravel 13
• Livewire 4
• Flux 2
• Fortify authentication
• Two-factor authentication
• Passkey support
• Prebuilt Tailwind/Flux assets served from public/build

What's Removed

• package.json
• package-lock.json
• node_modules
• vite.config.js
• resources/css/app.css
• resources/js/*
• npm and Vite steps from Composer scripts and GitHub Actions

Getting Started

Install dependencies and prepare the application:

composer install
cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate
php artisan migrate

Run the development server:

php artisan serve

Run the test suite:

php artisan test

Composer Scripts

This starter kit includes an opinionated Composer workflow for keeping Laravel applications ready to ship:

• composer setup installs dependencies, creates .env, generates the app key, and runs migrations.
• composer dev starts Laravel's local development server without Vite or Node.
• composer lint runs Laravel Pint and fixes PHP style issues.
• composer test:lint runs Laravel Pint in check-only mode.
• composer lint:check is an alias for the check-only Pint run.
• composer rector runs Rector with the Laravel code quality, collection, and Laravel level sets.
• composer stan runs PHPStan through Larastan at level 6.
• composer test clears cached config, checks PHP formatting, and runs the Laravel test suite.
• composer ide-helper regenerates Laravel IDE Helper files and model mixins.
• composer ready runs IDE helper generation, Rector, Pint, PHPStan, tests, and Composer audit.
• composer report runs Rector, Pint, PHPStan, tests, and Composer audit as a non-blocking report.
• composer ci:check runs the default project test check used by this starter kit.
• php artisan fresh resets the database to a fresh, seeded state. You can add additional steps to set your application up for local development.
• php artisan flux:pro installs Flux Pro by adding the Flux Pro Composer repository and requiring livewire/flux-pro. This assumes your Flux Pro credentials are already saved globally; if they are not, run php artisan flux:activate instead.

Working With Assets

The starter kit intentionally does not require a source asset pipeline. Application CSS, font CSS, fonts, and the passkey browser helper are committed as static files in public/build/assets.

By default, there is still no frontend build step. The application loads public/build/assets/app.css, public/build/assets/fonts.css, and public/build/assets/passkeys.js directly.

If CSS size matters or you add Tailwind classes and want to regenerate the checked-in CSS, run the opt-in optimizer:

php artisan tailwind:optimize

The command downloads the standalone Tailwind CSS CLI for your operating system, caches it under storage/app/tools, scans the configured Tailwind sources, and writes the optimized output to public/build/assets/app.css. It does not require Node, npm, or Vite, and it is not part of the default setup or CI workflow.

You can force a fresh CLI download or change paths when needed:

php artisan tailwind:optimize --force-download
php artisan tailwind:optimize --tailwind-version=v4.3.0
php artisan tailwind:optimize --input=resources/css/tailwind.css --output=public/build/assets/app.css

Repository

This project lives at artisan-build/laravel-nodeless.