TopolearnRoutes are the front door of every Laravel app and determine how URLs reach your controllers.
Routes live in routes/web.php (with sessions, cookies and CSRF protection) and routes/api.php (stateless, prefixed with /api). The simplest route returns a value directly:
Route::get('/hello', fn () => 'Hello');There are methods for each verb: get, post, put, patch, delete, plus match and any. Strings are sent as HTML, arrays and models as JSON.
- Parameters:
/posts/{id}passes$idto the handler;{slug?}is optional and needs a default. Constrain with->whereNumber('id'). - Named routes:
->name('posts.show'), then generate URLs withroute('posts.show', ['id' => 5]). Never hard-code URLs in views. - Groups share attributes:
Route::prefix('admin')->middleware('auth')->group(function () { ... }). - Resource routes:
Route::resource('photos', PhotoController::class)registers the seven conventional routes (index, create, store, show, edit, update, destroy);apiResourceskips the two HTML form routes.
Route model binding is a big convenience: type-hint a model and name the parameter accordingly, and Laravel fetches it or returns 404:
Route::get('/users/{user}', fn (User $user) => $user);Use {post:slug} to bind by another column. php artisan route:list shows every registered route.
Example
<?php
// routes/web.php
use App\Http\Controllers\PhotoController;
use App\Models\Post;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;
Route::get('/', fn () => view('welcome'))->name('home');
Route::get('/greet/{name?}', fn (string $name = 'guest') => "Hello, $name")
->where('name', '[A-Za-z]+');
// /posts/my-first-post -> Post found by slug, or 404
Route::get('/posts/{post:slug}', fn (Post $post) => $post)->name('posts.show');
Route::resource('photos', PhotoController::class);
// GET /photos, GET /photos/create, POST /photos, GET /photos/{photo},
// GET /photos/{photo}/edit, PUT/PATCH /photos/{photo}, DELETE /photos/{photo}
Route::prefix('admin')->middleware('auth')->name('admin.')->group(function () {
Route::get('/stats', fn () => ['users' => 42])->name('stats'); // admin.stats
});
// route('posts.show', $post) -> https://example.test/posts/my-first-postRemember
- Each HTTP verb has a Route method; return strings, views or JSON
- Name routes and build URLs with route()
- Type-hinted model parameters are fetched automatically (404 if missing)
Watch out for
- Hard-coding URLs in views instead of using named routes, which breaks when paths change.