How Can You Customize Laravel Optimization with the New –except Option?

The optimize and optimize:clear Artisan commands in Laravel are essential for improving performance and simplifying deployments. However, they lacked flexibility, as they executed all optimization tasks by default. With Laravel 11.28, a new –except option has been introduced, allowing developers to exclude specific tasks from the optimization process.

Problem: Lack of Control in Optimization

Laravel’s optimize and optimize:clear commands previously required all optimization steps to run together, whether needed or not. This led to several challenges:

• Performance Overhead: Unnecessary optimizations added extra processing time.

• Environment Incompatibility: Unsupported operations caused issues in certain environments, like Laravel Vapor.

• Lack of Granularity: Developers had to rely on manual cache management or complex workarounds.

Solution: Selective Optimization with –except

The new –except option provides a simple way to exclude specific optimizations from running. This improves efficiency and prevents unwanted operations.

For example:

• Exclude events and views caching:
  
  
  PHP

  php artisan optimize --except=events,views

  1	php artisan optimize --except=events,views

   
• Skip clearing route cache:
  
  
  PHP

  php artisan optimize:clear --except=routes

  1	php artisan optimize:clear --except=routes

   

  With this feature, Laravel Vapor users can now optimize applications without triggering unsupported operations like route:cache.

Implementation Notes 

Requires Laravel 11.28 or higher

 Multiple exclusions are comma-separated 

Works with both optimize and optimize:clear commands

 Maintains all existing functionality when used without the option

Conclusion

The –except option brings greater control over Laravel’s optimization process. Developers can now fine-tune which tasks to execute, improving efficiency in both local and production environments. To start using this feature, ensure your application runs on Laravel 11.28 or higher.

For further information, get in touch with 2Hats Logic Solutions.