Freek.dev

What if Val Town could run PHP and Laravel code?

**RegexParser** is A zero-dependency library that parses PCRE patterns into an **AST** to provide static analysis, structural **ReDoS detection**, and linting without executing the regex. It treats regex as code, allowing developers to validate, optimize, and visualize patterns safely in PHP 8.2+.

The story behind brainradio.fm - a scrobbler for the songs stuck in your head

Prompts break silently. Here's how to catch regressions with PHPUnit evals before your users do.

A live demonstration for how to use Symfony messenger component to deal with long running processes in the background

Learn how to build an AI-powered drawing guessing game. In this little app, users will draw anything they like, and the AI will try to guess what it is.

Streamline dynamic multi-domain routing in Laravel with Traefik by serving YAML via the HTTP provider for automated, secure, and scalable configuration management. Ideal for Laravel developers and DevOps teams who want to eliminate bulky static files and improve maintainability.

A practical guide to deploying a high-performance Laravel stack using Octane, FrankenPHP, and a fully automated Docker Compose workflow.

Pause and resume Laravel queues using artisan commands and in code. Learn how to control workers, pause with TTLs, and manage queue flow precisely.

Run realistic load tests directly inside PHPUnit using Volt-Test 1.2.0. Detect race conditions, validate data integrity under load, and catch performance regressions early — all within your Laravel test suite.

In this episode of the Quick Win Wednesday series, we're using the new insert functionality on Factories. This reduces the amount of queries in our seeders.

In this guide, we'll explore everything from basic queue concepts to advanced patterns, with real performance data and production-ready examples.

Read about the difference between immutable and mutable dates in PHP. We'll also look at a common gotcha I've experienced when using mutable dates and how to avoid it.

This month covers code editors and IDEs.

Agentic workflow with Laravel that runs content review with feedback to match certain criteria. Very useful to get high quality content in one shot generation.

In this episode of the Quick Win Wednesday series, I'll have a look at how to use flexible caching in Laravel. A great way to avoid unhappy users who'll hit invalid cache.

Learn how to validate phone numbers in Laravel using built-in rules, regex patterns, and custom validation rules to handle local and international formats.

Read about my latest package: Email Utilities for Laravel. It's a small package which can be used to check and validate whether an email address is disposable or role-based.