Systems

The skeleton is small enough that "system" maps cleanly to "top-level directory." Each subsection of this page documents one of the directories you'll spend time in. Pages are ordered to match the request lifecycle: bootstrap → routing → application code → persistence → frontend → tests.

System	What lives there
Bootstrap	bootstrap/app.php and bootstrap/providers.php — how the framework is configured at boot
Public	public/index.php, public/.htaccess — the web server's document root
Routes	routes/web.php, routes/console.php — HTTP and Artisan route definitions
App	app/Http/Controllers/, app/Models/, app/Providers/ — the application's PHP namespace
Config	The ten files in config/ and how their env-var lookups are resolved
Database	database/migrations/, database/factories/, database/seeders/ — schema and fixtures
Resources	resources/views/welcome.blade.php, resources/css/app.css, resources/js/app.js
Storage	storage/app/, storage/framework/, storage/logs/ — runtime artifacts (not committed)
Tests	tests/Unit/, tests/Feature/, tests/TestCase.php

The vendor/ and node_modules/ directories are not documented here — they are dependency installs, not application code. See Reference → Dependencies for the package list.

Reading order

If you're new to the codebase, the most useful path is:

1. Public — the front door (one PHP file).
2. Bootstrap — what happens after the front door (one PHP file too).
3. Routes — where requests go.
4. App — where you'll add controllers and models.
5. Database — what tables exist by default and why.

The rest fill in details.