Laravel 13 Testing — Pest PHP 4 & PHPUnit 12

Supports both Pest PHP 4 and PHPUnit 12. See Framework Detection below.

PHPUnit version note: Laravel 13 ships with phpunit/phpunit: ^12.5.12 in its default composer.json. All patterns in this skill are compatible with PHPUnit 11, 12, and 13.

Comprehensive testing guide for Laravel 13 applications. Contains 24 rules across 6 categories for writing fast, readable, and reliable tests. Supports both Pest PHP 4 and PHPUnit 12 (Laravel 13 default).

Framework Detection

Before writing or reviewing any test code, detect which testing framework the project uses:

Step 1 — Check composer.json

# Look for these in require-dev:
# "pestphp/pest" → Pest
# "phpunit/phpunit" (without pest) → PHPUnit