Amplify - It's orbin' time!

Amplify helps your AmpCode orbs run your Laravel apps well, with fewer setup quirks.

Every new Laravel project on Amp needs the same setup: an orb setup script that installs PHP and dependencies, services and a portal that serve the app over HTTPS, Laravel Boost wired to Amp, Laravel Cloud and Forge CLI's, and a few global Composer tools.

Amplify removes a few paper cuts that you'll normally run into when getting Laravel running on your orb.

What you get

• One prompt to set up an orb. Ask Amp to "Set up orbs for this app" and it writes .agents/setup, .agents/resume, and .amp/services.yaml for you.
• An orb that's ready to work. It installs PHP, Composer, and your dependencies, creates .env and APP_KEY, and runs your migrations and seeders.
• The database you use in production. SQLite, MySQL, MariaDB, or PostgreSQL at the version you pick, plus Redis if your app uses it.
• composer run dev, in the orb. You get the app, Vite with hot reload, a queue worker, Reverb, and Mailpit to catch outgoing mail.
• One HTTPS portal that works. The app, hot reload, and Reverb all run on one portal URL with correct https:// links, and you don't have to change your app's code.
• Laravel Boost and the Cloud and Forge CLIs set up for Amp. Boost reads your guidelines from .ai/, and the CLIs sign in with your Amp secrets.
• Laravel context in every thread. Amp knows how to start your services and use Boost's tools from your first prompt.

Works with Laravel 11 and later. If you already have setup files, it adds to them instead of replacing them.

Install

For you

Paste this into any Amp thread, or tell Puck:

Add the Amplify plugin from https://github.com/springloadedco/amplify to my personal plugins, then push it

Amp copies the plugin into your personal plugins, so it loads in every new thread, on your machine and in orbs. Send the same message again to update.

Then open a Laravel app in Amp and ask: "Set up orbs for this app."

For a team workspace

A workspace admin can install it for everyone in the workspace:

Add the Amplify plugin from https://github.com/springloadedco/amplify to our workspace plugins, then push it

Amplify is a directory plugin: an amplify/ folder with this repository's index.ts, skills/, and LICENSE. To keep it with one project instead, put that folder in the project's .amp/plugins/.

What it does

amplify:laravel-orb-setup skill. Ask Amp to "set up orbs for this Laravel app". The skill:

• writes .agents/setup, which installs PHP (8.4 by default, from packages.sury.org) with the common extensions, Composer, global Composer packages (laravel/installer, laravel/cloud-cli), Composer and JS dependencies, .env and APP_KEY, the database from the app's chosen database (SQLite, or MySQL, MariaDB, or PostgreSQL at a chosen version, under systemd), Redis when .env uses it, migrations, Mailpit, and a production asset build. It reads the project at run time and is safe to rerun.
• writes .agents/resume, which restarts those databases whenever an orb wakes and points the Forge CLI at your organization and server.
• writes .amp/services.yaml, the orb's composer run dev: php artisan serve, the Vite dev server with hot reload, queue, Reverb, and Mailpit (with its own portal, catching mail from the app and queue). The portal description says how to sign in when seeders create a user.
• serves the app, Vite's HMR websocket, and Reverb on one HTTPS portal through a small same-origin proxy, using the app's own vite.config.js and echo.js unchanged. Tested with a plain Laravel 13 app and the React, Vue, Svelte, and Livewire starter kits (Vite+, Inertia SSR, Livewire and Flux, Fortify auth).
• makes Laravel generate https:// URLs behind the portal without touching the app's code: a PHP prepend file loaded only by the orb's app service marks portal requests as HTTPS, so no trustProxies() change to bootstrap/app.php is needed.
• wires Laravel Boost to Amp: if you choose, every orb runs boost:install so Boost's guidelines, skills, and MCP server are ready.
• asks what database production runs and sets orbs up with the same one.
• never changes your app. Setup writes only .agents/, .amp/, and Amplify's .gitignore entries. Changes it recommends, such as upgrading Boost, making .ai/ the single source of Boost's guidelines and skills instead of committing a copy per agent, or running tests on the production database instead of SQLite, are offered one by one and made in a separate thread you review.

Laravel context in every thread. On a thread's first prompt in a Laravel repository, Amplify tells the agent how to start the app's services, to use Boost's MCP tools, and, when the repository has no .agents/setup yet, to use the skill above instead of Amp's generic orb setup.

Configuration

.agents/setup reads these project environment variables (Amp project settings → Secrets & Env Vars):

Variable	Default	Purpose
AMPLIFY_PHP_VERSION	config.platform.php, else the newest PHP that composer.json and composer.lock allow	PHP version to install
AMPLIFY_PHP_EXTENSIONS	none	Extra php<version>-* packages, e.g. imagick swoole
AMPLIFY_COMPOSER_GLOBAL_PACKAGES	laravel/installer laravel/cloud-cli laravel/forge-cli	Global Composer packages; empty to skip
AMPLIFY_DATABASE	chosen during setup, else DB_CONNECTION	sqlite, mysql, mariadb, or pgsql
AMPLIFY_DATABASE_VERSION	chosen during setup, else MySQL 8.4 / PostgreSQL 17 / MariaDB 10.11	Database server version
AMPLIFY_FRESH_SEED	chosen during setup, else 1	1 runs migrate:fresh --seed in setup, 0 only migrate
AMPLIFY_BOOST_INSTALL	chosen during setup, else 1	1 runs boost:install for Amp in setup, 0 skips it

The first time it sets a project up, the skill asks, with Amp's option picker, which database production runs (MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, or SQLite, and which version), whether new orbs should start from a freshly seeded database, and whether they run boost:install, and records the answers in .agents/setup. Local service ports live in .amp/orb.env; change one there if it clashes with something the app already runs.

Amplify supports Laravel 11 and newer. In a repository that already runs in Amp, the skill merges its files with the existing .agents/setup and .amp/services.yaml instead of replacing them. Threads whose orbs started before the change keep their old environment; start a new thread to pick it up.

The Laravel Cloud CLI authenticates from LARAVEL_CLOUD_TOKEN. Store a Cloud API token as an Amp secret with that name.

The Laravel Forge CLI authenticates from FORGE_API_TOKEN; store a Forge API token as an Amp secret with that name. Forge also needs a current organization and server, which it keeps only in its config file, so set FORGE_ORGANIZATION (organization slug) and FORGE_SERVER (server ID) as Amp environment variables and .agents/resume writes them there whenever an orb wakes.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.