Artisan commands

Run from the project root, where artisan lives. Everything here is optional — the admin panel covers the same ground — but the command line does not time out, which makes it the reliable route for a slow operation.

Radius commands

php artisan cms:admin              # create or promote an admin account
php artisan cms:sync               # register new modules, gateways and settings
php artisan cms:sync --themes      # re-scan the themes folder
php artisan cms:cdn-sync           # move the media library to the storage provider
php artisan cms:demo               # install sample content
php artisan cms:demo --remove      # delete that sample content
php artisan cms:export             # export content as a portable bundle
php artisan cms:import             # import a Radius export bundle
php artisan cms:import-wordpress   # import a WordPress .xml export
php artisan cms:update             # install an available update
php artisan cms:release            # build a release ZIP (maintainers)
php artisan cms:theme-package      # build a checked, installable theme ZIP
php artisan cms:marketplace-entry  # print a theme directory listing for a ZIP
php artisan search:rebuild         # rebuild the site search index
php artisan search:status          # show the search engine and index state

cms:admin

Creates an administrator, or promotes an existing account to one. Prompts for name, email and password.

This is the way back in if you lose admin access. Running it against an existing email promotes that account rather than failing.

cms:sync

Registers things the database has not learned about yet: new modules, new payment gateways, new media storage providers, new settings keys. It never touches anything already configured.

Run it after replacing files by hand. The in-panel updater runs it for you.

--themes re-scans themes/ — use it after uploading a theme over FTP rather than through the admin panel.

cms:cdn-sync

Uploads every media file still on this server to the active storage provider. This is the command-line version of the batch buttons on Media storage, for libraries too big to click through.

• --pull brings files that exist only on the provider back to this server
• --limit=N stops after N files
• --force skips the confirmation asked before local copies are deleted (asked only when the provider is set not to keep them)

It exits non-zero if any file failed, and running it again retries those files.

cms:demo

Fills an install with something to look at and test against: 12 blog posts, 9 pages and 15 products, plus the categories, tags, comments, reviews, variants and placeholder images that go with them. Images are drawn at run time rather than shipped, so nothing is added to the repository.

The catalogue is chosen to cover the cases a real one has — a product on sale inside a date window, one out of stock, one on backorder, one digital, one still in draft, a scheduled post, an unapproved comment — because fifteen identical in-stock products test nothing.

It is not part of db:seed, so a normal install never gets it.

Re-running it restores the demo records to their original state, which makes it a quick way to reset a database you have been experimenting with.

--remove deletes exactly what the seeder created, keyed on slug, and leaves content you wrote yourself alone.

Do not run cms:demo on a live site

It creates published content on the public site immediately.

cms:update

Installs an available update with no request timeout to run into — the most reliable route for a large release, and the recovery path if a browser update times out halfway. Takes the same backup first.

php artisan cms:update            # check, confirm, install
php artisan cms:update --check    # only report what is available
php artisan cms:update --finish   # migrate and clear caches after copying files in by hand

--finish is the command for a release unzipped over the site with FTP: it runs the migrations, registers new modules, gateways and settings, adds new .env keys and clears the caches. It needs no update server, and a site that is already up to date just says so.

See Updates.

cms:theme-package

php artisan cms:theme-package storefront

Builds storage/app/private/theme-packages/<slug>-<version>.zip from themes/<slug>, runs the theme installer's own checks against it, and deletes the ZIP if they fail. It also checks the screenshot's size and format. Use --output= to write it somewhere else.

The default theme cannot be packaged: it ships with every install and cannot be uploaded over.

cms:marketplace-entry

For whoever runs a theme directory. Prints the catalogue entry for a theme ZIP — checksum, size, slug and version read from the archive itself — ready to paste into the catalogue file.

php artisan cms:marketplace-entry path/to/aurora-1.2.0.zip \
    --url=https://www.insertcart.com/marketplace/aurora

--url is the folder the ZIP and its screenshot.png will be served from. It warns about files the theme installer would drop, and refuses a theme.json whose version is written as a number.

cms:export

Writes the same bundle the Import & export screen does, without an upload limit or a request timeout. The format to reach for on a site with tens of thousands of records.

php artisan cms:export --output=/backups
php artisan cms:export --types=posts,pages --status=published --format=json
php artisan cms:export --types=products --format=csv --from=2026-01-01

Option	Does
--types=	Comma-separated: pages,posts,categories,tags,comments,products,coupons,menus,media. Default is everything
--ids=	Just these records, by id. Needs a single --types, so there is no doubt what the ids belong to
--status=	Only records with this status
--from= / --to=	Date range: posts by publication, everything else by creation
--format=	zip (default), json or csv
--no-media	Leave the image files out of the archive
--no-layouts	Leave builder layouts out
--output=	A directory, or a full path. Defaults to the current directory

cms:import

Applies a bundle. No time limit, unlike the web importer, which stops itself after ten minutes so a request cannot hang.

php artisan cms:import backup.zip --dry-run     # say what is in it, change nothing
php artisan cms:import backup.zip               # skip anything already here
php artisan cms:import backup.zip --update      # overwrite it instead

Option	Does
--types=	Only these types, whatever else the file holds
--update	Overwrite records that already exist, instead of skipping them
--status=	Force everything to draft or published
--author=	Email of the account to own content whose author is not on this site
--create-authors	Create accounts for authors this site has not got, with no usable password
--no-media	Do not touch the media library
--download	Fetch images the bundle does not carry from the old site
--no-layouts	Skip builder layouts
--dry-run	Read and report, import nothing

Exits non-zero when any record failed, so a scripted migration can tell.

cms:import-wordpress

Imports a WordPress .xml (WXR) export — posts, pages, categories, tags, comments, menus and WooCommerce products. See Import & export for what does and does not come across.

php artisan cms:import-wordpress export.xml --dry-run
php artisan cms:import-wordpress export.xml --media --create-authors

Option	Does
--media	Fetch the image files from the old site. Without it, no pictures arrive
--types=	Only these types
--update	Overwrite records that already exist
--status=	Force everything to draft or published
--author=	Email of the account to own posts whose writer is not on this site
--create-authors	Create accounts for the WordPress authors
--dry-run	Read and report, import nothing

Running the same file twice is safe: everything already brought across is skipped.

search:rebuild

Rebuilds the search index from the database. The same as Rebuild index now under Settings → Search, without the web server's time limit, which makes it the way to build the index on a very large site.

php artisan search:rebuild              # every searchable type
php artisan search:rebuild product      # just one
php artisan search:rebuild --engine=index   # build before switching the setting

With the database engine selected and no --engine, it does nothing: database search has no index.

search:status

Prints the engine in use, whether live results are on, and for each content type whether the index is built, how many items it holds, its size and when it was built.

Laravel commands you will actually use

php artisan optimize:clear         # clear every cache
php artisan storage:link           # recreate the public/storage symlink
php artisan migrate --force        # run pending migrations
php artisan key:generate           # regenerate APP_KEY — read the warning
php artisan about                  # environment summary
php artisan route:list             # every registered route

optimize:clear

The first thing to try when a change is not taking effect. Clears config, routes, views and the application cache.

storage:link

Recreates the symlink that serves uploaded files. Run it when uploaded images start returning 404 — some hosts drop symlinks when copying files or restoring a backup.

key:generate

This makes every encrypted value unreadable

APP_KEY decrypts payment gateway credentials, two-factor secrets and recovery codes, and signs every session cookie. After regenerating it you must re-enter every gateway's credentials and every admin must re-enrol their second factor.

Only run it on a fresh install, or deliberately after a suspected key compromise. Back up .env first.

route:list

Useful for confirming a module is actually on. If /shop 404s, check whether the route exists at all:

php artisan route:list | grep shop

No output means the module is off, or the route cache is stale.

Production caching

php artisan config:cache
php artisan route:cache
php artisan view:cache

The admin panel's Optimise for production button runs all three.

Caching routes freezes which ones exist

After caching, toggling a module or changing CMS_ADMIN_PREFIX has no effect until you clear. Always optimize:clear before changing configuration, and re-cache afterwards.

The scheduler

One cron entry covers scheduled posts and the daily update check:

* * * * * cd /path/to/your/site && php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

It also rebuilds the search index nightly at 03:30 when index search is selected, which refreshes prices of products whose sale started or ended.

Radius works without it — you simply publish scheduled posts by hand and press Check for updates yourself.

Installing from the command line

cp .env.example .env          # then fill in your DB_ credentials
php artisan key:generate
php artisan migrate --force
php artisan db:seed --force
php artisan cms:admin
php artisan storage:link
echo "{}" > storage/installed

That last line writes the lock file that closes the setup wizard. Without it, your site keeps offering to install itself.

See Installation.

If php is not on your PATH

On shared hosting the binary is often version-specific:

/usr/local/bin/php82 artisan cms:admin
php8.2 artisan cms:admin

Check with php -v that you are running 8.2 or newer — a host's default php is sometimes an older version than the one serving your site.