README

A Laravel Artisan package for developers who deploy to shared hosting (Hostinger, Namecheap, cPanel, etc.) where the web root is the project root — not public/.

On shared hosting you can't point the domain to /public, so everything inside public/ — index.php, .htaccess, assets, everything — needs to live at the project root instead. This package moves all public/ contents back and forth safely, including automatically patching index.php paths.

The Problem

Local dev               Shared hosting
───────────            ───────────────
project/               project/
├── public/            ├── index.php     ← moved from public/
│   ├── index.php      ├── .htaccess
│   ├── .htaccess      ├── favicon.ico
│   ├── favicon.ico    ├── build/
│   ├── build/         ├── css/
│   └── css/           ├── public/       ← empty
└── ...                └── ...

You don't want to manually move files and patch paths every time you switch environments. This package automates that — with backups, rollback, and conflict detection.

Installation

composer require mohammadsafiabdullah/laravel-env-switcher

Auto-discovery registers the service provider. No config file needed.

Commands

Options

php artisan env:productionise --force   # skip the confirmation prompt
php artisan env:localise --force
php artisan env:reset --to=original    # restore the very first backup ever taken
php artisan env:reset --to=pre-deploy  # restore any named backup

Typical workflow

1. Check current state

php artisan env:status

2. Before pushing to shared hosting

php artisan env:productionise
git add -A && git push

3. Back to local dev after pulling

php artisan env:localise

4. Something went wrong — roll back

php artisan env:reset --to=previous
# or go all the way back to the original:
php artisan env:reset --to=original

What gets moved

Everything inside public/ is moved to the project root, including:

• index.php (paths are automatically patched — __DIR__.'/../' becomes __DIR__.'/')
• .htaccess
• favicon.ico, robots.txt
• build/, css/, js/, images/ — any asset folders
• Any other files or directories you've added

Skipped automatically:

• Symlinks (e.g. storage/ → ../storage/app/public)
• .gitignore

How mode is detected

The package uses a state file (.env-switcher.json) to track the current mode and which items were moved. If no state file exists, it falls back to checking where index.php lives.

Backups

Every switch command automatically creates a previous backup before making any changes. The very first switch also saves an original backup. You can create additional named backups at any time:

php artisan env:backup --type=pre-deploy

Backups are stored in .env-switcher-backups/ at the project root. Add this to .gitignore.

Safety

• Pre-flight collision check — before moving any files, the package checks for collisions at the destination. If a file already exists, the operation is aborted before touching anything.
• Per-item rollback — if a move fails mid-way, already-moved items are moved back automatically.
• Automatic path patching — index.php relative paths are updated so the app works in both locations.
• State tracking — .env-switcher.json records exactly which items were moved, so localise knows what to move back.
• Atomic reset — env:reset copies the backup to a temp location first, then verifies it before wiping the current state. Your backup is never at risk.
• Conflict detection — if index.php ends up in both locations, the package detects this and refuses to switch until you resolve it.

Add to .gitignore

.env-switcher-backups/
.env-switcher-tmp-restore-*

Requirements

• PHP 8.1+
• Laravel 10, 11, 12, or 13

License

MIT © M Safi Abdullah