I got tired of running 5 terminal tabs for every Laravel project, so I built a lightweight desktop cockpit
Hey everyone!
If you work on multiple Laravel projects locally, your daily routine probably looks like this:
- Terminal 1:
php artisan serve - Terminal 2:
npm run dev(Vite) - Terminal 3:
php artisan queue:work - Port
8000is mysteriously blocked by a background process from yesterday. - Digging through seeders or old
.envfiles trying to remember the test admin login. - Switching projects means killing everything and repeating the whole cycle.
To solve this friction, I built DevDock — a lightweight desktop app that gives you a single unified cockpit for all your local projects.
What it does:
- 📁 Instant Project Discovery: Point it at your projects folder and it scans and detects all your Laravel applications, their framework versions, Vite configurations, and PHP requirements in milliseconds.
- ⚡ 1-Click Full Stack Launch: Starts your Artisan backend, Vite frontend, and background workers together. Ports are auto-allocated so you never get a port collision again.
- 🔀 Per-Project PHP Isolation: Assign different PHP versions (8.1, 8.2, 8.3) to different projects without messing with your system PATH.
- 🔐 Project Vault: Keep your local admin logins, test credentials, and dev notes pinned directly to each project with 1-click copy buttons.
- 📄 Unified Live Console: Watch live streaming logs for all running services in one filterable window instead of jumping across terminal tabs.
- 🪶 Ultra-Lightweight: Uses under ~38 MB of RAM at idle — starts instantly and doesn't drain your laptop battery.
🚀 Looking for Beta Testers!
I'm currently opening this up for early feedback from other developers. I'd love to know:
- How do you currently handle running multiple local projects (Herd, Valet, manual terminals)?
- What feature would make this an instant daily tool for you?
All feedback, feature requests, and honest critiques are welcome!
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