Today I'm sharing LaraLens — a free, open-source desktop app that scans Laravel projects locally and turns them into an interactive architecture graph. If you have ever opened a Laravel codebase and spent the first hour grepping routes, jumping between controllers, and trying to remember which model a service touches, this is the tool I built for that problem.

The Problem

Laravel projects grow fast. Routes multiply, services layer on top of controllers, jobs and events branch off in directions that are hard to hold in your head at once. Runtime tools like Telescope and Debugbar are great for watching what happens when a request hits your app. But they do not give you the full static picture — the map of how everything is wired together before you run anything.

The Idea

LaraLens gives you a living map of your entire Laravel architecture. Point it at a project folder on your machine. It scans locally, builds an interactive graph, and lets you explore routes, controllers, models, jobs, and events in one place. No cloud upload. No accounts. No PHP runtime required.

How It Works

LaraLens follows a simple three-step flow:

1. Scan locally — Point at your Laravel folder. Everything stays on your machine.
2. Explore the graph — Pan and zoom through routes, controllers, models, and jobs. Trace call chains from a route to the models it touches.
3. Ask OpenCode — Chat about what you are viewing in the graph with context from the selected route, folder, or node.

Static Analysis Without PHP

Under the hood, LaraLens uses php-parser and fast-glob in Node.js to analyze your Laravel project statically. It parses routes, controllers, models, middleware, jobs, events, commands, schedules, channels, and providers — then builds the graph from that analysis. You do not need PHP installed to scan a project. The desktop app handles everything locally inside Electron.

LaraLens vs Telescope and Debugbar

Telescope and Debugbar instrument runtime requests. They show you what happened when something ran. LaraLens maps the full static architecture before you hit an endpoint. The two approaches are complementary — one shows you the wiring diagram, the other shows you traffic on the wires.

Privacy-First by Design

Your code stays on your machine. Always.

• No cloud upload or accounts
• Offline core features
• Local SQLite for chat thread persistence
• Sandboxed code viewer scoped to the scanned project

Try It

LaraLens is free and open source. Download it from laralens.ryder.pro or grab the latest release on GitHub. If you work with Laravel and want a faster way to understand how a codebase fits together, I built this for you.