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Freek.dev

Laravel / PHP / JavaScript

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Stay up to date with all things Laravel, PHP, and JavaScript.

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On all these platforms, regularly share programming tips, and what I myself have learned in ongoing projects.

Every month I send out a newsletter containing lots of interesting stuff for the modern PHP developer.

Expect quick tips & tricks, interesting tutorials, opinions and packages. Because I work with Laravel every day there is an emphasis on that framework.

Rest assured that I will only use your email address to send you the newsletter and will not use it for any other purposes.

Why I don't use down migrations

Original – by Freek Van der Herten – 3 minute read

Every once in a while, someone opens a PR on one of our open source packages adding a down function to the migration. I usually close those PRs fast with a thank you and a message “We don’t use down migrations in our projects”.

While down migrations might seem like a safety net, they're often a false comfort that potentially creates more problems than they solve.

Instead of explaining this in every PR separately, let me share why we don't write down migrations and what we do instead.

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The Real Ask

Link – – frederickvanbrabant.com - submitted by Frederick Vanbrabant

When someone comes to you with a question to do something, instead of blindly doing the ask, take a step back and try to understand what they actually want to achieve. Often this task might actually not be the best way to achieve the goal they are set out to do.

Read more [frederickvanbrabant.com]

Introducing Rich Text Laravel - Part 2

Link – – tighten.com - submitted by Kayla Helmick

This article continues the series on integrating Trix with Laravel by focusing on user mentions using the Rich Text Laravel package. It walks through adding a Tribute.js-powered mention picker in the editor, implementing back-end support via an AttachableContract and Signed Global IDs, and even scaffolds a notification system to email mentioned users.

Read more [tighten.com]

How to monitor your Laravel app for critical vulnerabilities

Original – by Freek Van der Herten – 6 minute read

A critical security vulnerability was just disclosed for Livewire v3, as Stephen Rees-Carter wrote about on Securing Laravel. The vulnerability (CVE-2025-54068) allows unauthenticated attackers to achieve remote code execution in specific scenarios. What makes this particularly concerning is that exploitation doesn't require authentication or user interaction - just a component mounted and configured in a particular way.

This vulnerability affects all Livewire v3 versions up to 3.6.3. If you're running any version in that range, attackers could potentially run arbitrary PHP code on your server. Stephan warns us the open-source nature of the fix means attackers may already be reverse-engineering the patch to identify and abuse the exploit.

Many production apps are probably running vulnerable versions right now, with their developers completely unaware. This is where automated security monitoring becomes invaluable - using Laravel Health to check for vulnerabilities, and optionally services like Oh Dear to send you notifications when issues are detected.

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