Mastering Laravel Migrations: Create, Add, Rename, Change & More

Laravel migrations are a powerful way to version-control your database. Here are some examples:

1️⃣ Create Table

php artisan make:migration create_posts_table --create=posts

Schema::create('posts', function (Blueprint $table) {
    $table->id();
    $table->string('title');
    $table->text('content');
    $table->timestamps();
});

2️⃣ Add New Field

php artisan make:migration add_excerpt_to_posts_table --table=posts

Schema::table('posts', function (Blueprint $table) {
    $table->string('excerpt', 500)->after('title');
});

3️⃣ Rename Field

php artisan make:migration rename_excerpt_to_summary_in_posts_table --table=posts

Schema::table('posts', function (Blueprint $table) {
    $table->renameColumn('excerpt', 'summary');
});

4️⃣ Change Data Type

php artisan make:migration change_summary_type_in_posts_table --table=posts

Schema::table('posts', function (Blueprint $table) {
    $table->text('summary')->change();
});

5️⃣ Add Enum Field

php artisan make:migration add_status_to_posts_table --table=posts

Schema::table('posts', function (Blueprint $table) {
    $table->enum('status', ['draft', 'published', 'archived'])->default('draft');
});

6️⃣ Drop Field

Schema::table('posts', function (Blueprint $table) {
    $table->dropColumn('summary');
});

✅ With migrations, every database change is tracked and reversible with php artisan migrate:rollback. This keeps your schema consistent across all environments.