// the find
nunomaduro/laravel-starter-kit
Laravel Starter Kit is an ultra-strict, type-safe Laravel skeleton engineered for developers who refuse to compromise on code quality.
A Laravel skeleton from Nuno Maduro (the Pest/PHPStan guy) that enforces PHPStan level 9, 100% type coverage, Rector, and immutable-by-default Eloquent models out of the box. It's for PHP developers who want the guardrails turned up to maximum from day one rather than retrofitting them later.
PHPStan at level 9 plus Pest's type coverage check running together catches a class of bugs that most Laravel projects only discover in production. The Essentials package brings in strict models and auto eager-load prevention, which silently kills N+1 queries before they happen. The tooling is pre-wired — one `composer test` runs static analysis, type coverage, unit tests, and linting, which matters when you're onboarding a team that won't configure this themselves. Having Rector in the default pipeline means automated modernization runs alongside linting rather than as a separate quarterly chore.
The directory tree is nearly empty — there's a `User` model, a welcome view, and placeholder `.gitkeep` files everywhere. You're buying the tooling configuration, not any real architectural patterns, so 'starter kit' oversells it a bit compared to Jetstream or Breeze. Requiring Bun adds a non-standard dependency that many PHP shops don't have and won't want; the speed gain over npm is marginal for a project with a few Vite assets. The AI assistant config files (.agents, .claude, .cursor, .junie, .gemini — all duplicating the same laravel-best-practices rules directory) clutter the repo and represent real maintenance burden if those rules ever diverge.