The official VS Code extension for Laravel has been released in open beta.

When writing PHP I work in the Laravel framework almost exclusively. As a VS Code user (as opposed to PhpStorm) I don't have the luxury of being able to use the Laravel Idea plugin, which is pretty-much the gold-standard in creating a Laravel-specific development environment.

Instead I rely on a handful of extensions to make VS Code more PHP-aware, but it still leaves a lot of room for improvement¹.

The first-party Laravel extension is something that I have been eagerly awaiting, and even though it is still in beta I have already installed it on both my personal and work machines.

Check out the non-exhaustive list of features on the extensions marketplace page - Merry Christmas to me!