code-instinct/artisan-docs

Automatically generate documentation for all Artisan commands in a Laravel application.

v1.0.1 2026-04-19 12:57 UTC

Requires

• php: ^8.1
• illuminate/console: ^10.0|^11.0|^12.0
• illuminate/contracts: ^10.0|^11.0|^12.0
• illuminate/support: ^10.0|^11.0|^12.0

Requires (Dev)

• laravel/pint: ^1.0
• orchestra/testbench: ^8.0|^9.0|^10.0
• phpunit/phpunit: ^10.0|^11.0

MIT

• Code Instinct

• documentation
• commands
• docs
• laravel
• artisan

README

Automatically generate structured reference documentation for every Artisan command registered in your Laravel application — including custom commands, third-party packages, and Laravel's own built-in commands.

Installation

composer require code-instinct/artisan-docs

Laravel's auto-discovery will register the service provider automatically.

Optionally publish the config and/or the HTML template:

# Publish configuration
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=artisan-docs-config

# Publish HTML Blade template (for customisation)
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=artisan-docs-views

Usage

Zero-config (Markdown, outputs to docs/commands.md)

php artisan docs:commands

Choose output format

php artisan docs:commands --format=html   --output=docs/commands.html
php artisan docs:commands --format=json   --output=docs/commands.json
php artisan docs:commands --format=markdown --output=README-commands.md

Filtering

# Only application-defined commands (in App\Console\Commands)
php artisan docs:commands --only-custom

# Exclude anything that lives in vendor/
php artisan docs:commands --exclude-vendor

# Scope to a single namespace
php artisan docs:commands --namespace=make

# Also surface hidden commands
php artisan docs:commands --include-hidden

CI check — fail if docs are out of sync

php artisan docs:commands --check

Exits with code 1 when the committed documentation file does not match the current command structure. Ideal for a CI gate.

Before comparing, --check performs structural normalisation: it strips format-specific timestamps embedded by each generator — the > Auto-generated on … blockquote line in Markdown, the generated_at field in JSON, and the generated-time suffix inside the <p class="meta"> element in HTML — so that a run whose only difference from the committed file is the generation timestamp still passes. Only genuine structural changes (commands added or removed, arguments or options modified) will cause the check to fail.

Configuration

After publishing, edit config/artisan-docs.php:

Key	Default	Description
default_format	markdown	markdown, html, or json
default_output	docs/commands.md	Output file path (relative to base path)
include_hidden	false	Include hidden commands
include_vendor	true	Include vendor package commands
excluded_namespaces	['_', 'completion', 'horizon', 'telescope', 'nova']	Namespaces to always skip. horizon, telescope, and nova are excluded by default to prevent exposing internal queue/worker configuration, recording settings, and admin tooling internals.
excluded_commands	[]	Specific command names to skip
groups	(see config)	Map namespace → group display name
app_command_paths	['App\\Console\\Commands\\']	Paths used to detect custom commands
html_template	artisan-docs::commands	Blade view for HTML output
title	Artisan Command Reference	Document title

Security

Sensitive Data Redaction

CommandInspector automatically redacts the default values of any command argument or option whose name matches a sensitive-credential pattern. This prevents secrets that were accidentally set as defaults from leaking into generated documentation.

The following keyword patterns trigger redaction (matched case-insensitively, including compound names such as db_password or api_token):

Matched keywords
password, passwd
secret
token
api_key, api-key, apikey
auth_key, auth-key
private_key, private-key
credential

When a match is found, the default value is replaced with the [ REDACTED ] placeholder (exposed as CommandInspector::REDACTED_VALUE) in all output formats. Arguments and options that have no meaningful default (null, false, or an empty string) are left untouched.

Output Formats

Markdown

GitHub-friendly tables for arguments and options, TOC with anchor links, group sections.

HTML

Self-contained, dark-themed single-page reference with a sticky sidebar navigation. Zero external dependencies — ship it to GitHub Pages, an S3 bucket, or your internal wiki.

JSON

Machine-readable structure for integration with Confluence, Notion, or custom tooling.

Customising the HTML Template

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=artisan-docs-views

Edit resources/views/vendor/artisan-docs/commands.blade.php.
Update html_template in your config to artisan-docs::commands (default already points to it after publishing).

Testing

composer test

Linting

composer lint

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! If you've found a bug, have a feature request, or want to submit a pull request, please read the Contributing Guidelines to get started.

License

Open-sourced software licensed under the MIT LICENSE.