Laravel Monitor

Local-first application monitoring for Laravel — Nightwatch-style insights on a self-hosted dashboard like Pulse. No external service, no agent, no fee: everything is captured from framework events and stored in your own database.

What it monitors:

Requirements

• PHP 8.1+
• Laravel 10, 11, 12 or 13
• Livewire 3 or 4 (installed automatically)

Installation

composer require ntm-dev/laravel-monitor
php artisan migrate

That's it. Open /monitor in your browser (allowed automatically in the local environment).

Optionally publish the config and views:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=monitor-config
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=monitor-views

Dashboard authorization

Outside the local environment the dashboard returns 403 by default. Grant access by defining the gate in a service provider:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Gate;

Gate::define('viewMonitor', function ($user = null) {
    return $user?->isAdmin() ?? false;
});

Configuration

All options live in config/monitor.php. Highlights:

'enabled' => env('MONITOR_ENABLED', true),   // master switch
'path' => env('MONITOR_PATH', 'monitor'),    // dashboard URL
'retention' => ['hours' => 168],             // used by monitor:prune

'recorders' => [
    Recorders\SlowQueries::class => [
        'enabled' => true,
        'threshold' => 100, // ms
    ],
    // ... every recorder can be disabled or tuned individually
],

Pruning old data

Schedule the prune command so the table doesn't grow forever:

// routes/console.php (Laravel 11+) or app/Console/Kernel.php
Schedule::command('monitor:prune')->daily();

php artisan monitor:clear wipes everything.

Storage drivers

The default database driver stores entries in a monitor_entries table (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite). Point it at a separate connection to keep monitoring data out of your main database:

MONITOR_DB_CONNECTION=monitor_sqlite

Custom drivers implement LaravelMonitor\Contracts\Storage and are registered in a service provider:

use LaravelMonitor\StorageManager;

public function boot(): void
{
    $this->app->make(StorageManager::class)->extend('redis', function ($app) {
        return new RedisStorage($app['redis']);
    });
}

Then set MONITOR_STORAGE_DRIVER=redis.

Recording custom entries

use LaravelMonitor\Facades\Monitor;

Monitor::record(
    type: 'deployment',
    key: 'v1.4.2',
    payload: ['by' => 'manh'],
);

// Run something without it being monitored:
Monitor::ignore(fn () => Cache::get('secret'));

How it works

Recorders subscribe to framework events and buffer entries in memory. The buffer is flushed in a single batch when the request (or queue job / scheduled task) finishes, so monitoring adds no queries during the request itself. Recording is paused while flushing, so the monitor never observes its own writes.

Testing

composer install
composer test

License

MIT