laravel/framework focused on correctness and consistency in 12.x: regex handling was standardized (including ObserverMakeCommand::parseModel), environment value extraction was refactored to use the enum_value() helper, and a handful of PHPDoc/return-type fixes landed (e.g. VendorPublishCommand::publishTag, promptForMissingArgumentsUsing, and relationship identifier resolution). Queue/mail got real attention: new delay-support assertions were added for queued mailables, Mailable::later() was fixed to actually apply the delay to SendQueuedMailable, and Batch::progress() now casts its return to int; there’s also a MySQL connection string tweak to use --ssl-mode=DISABLED for modern clients.
laravel/ai v0.1.4 shipped several fixes and small API polish (stream event delta handling, missing transcription options, and fluent WebSearch::location()), and v0.1.5 followed (changelog only) alongside ongoing work that’s more feature-oriented: Azure OpenAI support, provider failover for streaming, custom base URLs, and a new AiProvider enum for provider identifiers, plus a few guardrails to avoid fatal/undefined-key paths in assertions and tool code.
On tooling, laravel/vs-code-extension v1.6.0–v1.6.2 delivered a new Test Runner and then iterated quickly on it with improved error parsing and a PHPUnit-project fix, while also addressing a ReflectionException when a policy method is missing. laravel/boost v2.1.3 removed experimental third-party MCP primitives and added a symlink install mode for skills, with follow-up PRs improving skill content and fixing a missing output key in a Tinker tool error response.
Elsewhere, laravel/horizon, laravel/pulse, and laravel/telescope all picked up work around restricting private tunnel requests in local, plus Horizon improvements like failing fast when Redis isn’t installed and better digit readability. laravel/scout added Builder::where($field, $operator, $value) support (11.x), laravel/octane expanded env var support for FrankenPHP/Caddyfile, laravel/mcp made JSON formatting compact by default with configurability, and laravel/sentinel v1.0.1 added Laravel 13 support.