Laravel Updates & Release Notes

Pull request by @benbjurstrom

Routes can now carry arbitrary metadata through the full routing pipeline. Whether you're tagging routes for SEO, feature flags, or permissions, the new ->metadata() method gives you a dedicated, structured place to store that data - and it's fully compatible with route caching. Metadata set on a group merges recursively into child routes, so you can set defaults up top and override them where needed.

Route::metadata(['head' => ['robots' => ['noindex'], 'author' => 'Taylor']])
->group(function () {
Route::get('/users', [UserController::class, 'index'])
->metadata(['head' => ['title' => 'Users']]);
});
// Inside a controller or middleware
$request->route()->getMetadata('head.title'); // 'Users'
$request->route()->getMetadata('head.author', 'Taylor'); // 'Taylor'

Pull request by @DGarbs51

Running Postgres behind a transaction-mode connection pooler like PgBouncer, AWS RDS Proxy, or Neon? Laravel now supports this at the framework level. Set pooled => true in your database connection config and the framework handles emulated prepares, proper boolean binding, and everything else the pooler requires. For schema and DDL operations that need a direct connection, append ::direct to the connection name and Laravel will route around the pooler automatically - no extra configuration needed.

Pull request by @ManicardiFrancesco

Previously, calling between() or unlessBetween() before timezone() in a schedule chain would silently use UTC regardless of what timezone you specified - a subtle bug that could have scheduled tasks running at the wrong hour in production. The time-interval check is now deferred until the filter executes, so the order no longer matters.

// Both of these now behave identically
$schedule->command('foo')->timezone('Europe/Rome')->between('10:00', '12:00');
$schedule->command('foo')->between('10:00', '12:00')->timezone('Europe/Rome');

Pull request by @joetannenbaum

php artisan dev brings all your development processes together in one command - server, queue worker, log tailing, and Vite running concurrently, each with its own color-coded output. It replaces the composer dev script with a proper Artisan convention and auto-detects your Node package manager (npm, yarn, pnpm, or bun).

You can register additional commands from a service provider - useful for tools like Reverb or Stripe's CLI webhook listener:

use Illuminate\Foundation\Console\DevCommands;
DevCommands::artisan('reverb:start', 'reverb')->orange();
DevCommands::register('stripe listen --forward-to ' . config('app.url'))->green();

Pull request by @astandkaya

Working with backed enums in request data used to mean a whenFilled() call followed by a tryFrom() check and a null guard. whenFilledEnum() collapses all of that into a single method that only fires the callback when the key is present, the value maps to a valid enum case, and you get a typed enum instance in the closure - no manual validation needed.

// Before
$request->whenFilled('status', function (string $input) use ($query): void {
    $status = Status::tryFrom($input);
    if ($status === null) {
        return;
    }
    $query->where('status', $status);
});
// After
$request->whenFilledEnum('status', Status::class, function (Status $status) use ($query): void {
    $query->where('status', $status);
});

Pull request by @jackbayliss

PHP attributes like #[Queue(...)] can now be defined on traits, and Laravel will respect them when the trait is used in a job or event class. If you have queue configuration that should be shared across multiple jobs - the same connection, queue name, or timeout - define it once in a trait instead of duplicating it across every class.

#[Queue(connection: 'redis', queue: 'broadcasting')]
trait BroadcastsImports
{
public function broadcastWhen(): bool { /* ... */ }
}
class ImportCreated implements ShouldBroadcast
{
use BroadcastsImports; // picks up the Queue attribute
}

Pull request by @pushpak1300

Illuminate\JsonSchema can now represent multi-type union schemas - schemas where the type field is an array like ['string', 'number', 'boolean']. This comes up frequently with third-party MCP tool schemas where mixed types are common. Previously these would throw an exception; now they deserialize, serialize, and round-trip correctly.

// Now works where it used to throw
JsonSchema::fromArray(['type' => ['string', 'number', 'boolean']]);
// Or build one directly
JsonSchema::union(['string', 'number'])->nullable();