Laravel Telescope: A Powerful Debugging Tool for Your Laravel App

When developing a Laravel application, debugging and monitoring can be challenging. This is where Laravel Telescope comes in—a powerful debugging assistant that provides deep insights into your app’s requests, database queries, and much more.

In this guide, we’ll explore what Laravel Telescope is, how to install it, and how to use it effectively to improve your development workflow.

What is Laravel Telescope?

Laravel Telescope is an official debugging tool by Laravel that helps developers monitor and inspect:

• Incoming requests
• Database queries
• Exceptions and errors
• Jobs and queue processing
• Cache operations
• Scheduled tasks
• And much more!

It provides a beautiful UI where you can see detailed logs and analyze your application's performance in real-time.

How to Install Laravel Telescope

Getting started with Laravel Telescope is simple. Follow these steps:

Step 1: Install via Composer

Run the following command in your Laravel project directory:

composer require laravel/telescope --dev

Since Telescope is mainly used for development, it’s recommended to install it as a dev dependency (--dev).

Step 2: Publish the Telescope Assets

Next, publish the configuration and migration files using:

php artisan telescope:install

This command will create the necessary database tables to store Telescope’s data.

Step 3: Run Migrations

Now, migrate your database:

 php artisan migrate

This ensures that Telescope can store logs and other monitoring data in your database.

How to Access Laravel Telescope

Once installed, you can access Telescope by visiting:

http://your-app.test/telescope

Here, you’ll see a dashboard displaying logs, queries, exceptions, and more.

🚀 Key Features of Laravel Telescope

🔍 Request Monitoring

• ✅ Tracks all incoming HTTP requests in real time.
• ✅ Displays methods, status codes, and response times for better analysis.

🛠 Database Query Debugging

• ✅ Logs all executed SQL queries effortlessly.
• ✅ Helps pinpoint slow queries to boost performance.

⚠️ Exception Tracking

• ✅ Captures all errors & exceptions automatically.
• ✅ Provides detailed stack traces for quick debugging.

📌 Job & Queue Monitoring

• ✅ Keeps track of queued jobs & their statuses.
• ✅ Identifies and helps debug failed jobs effectively.

⚡ Cache & Redis Monitoring

• ✅ Monitors cache operations (get, put, forget).
• ✅ Optimizes caching strategies for improved app performance.

⏳ Scheduled Task Logging

• ✅ Logs all scheduled tasks running in kernel.php.
• ✅ A must-have for debugging cron jobs & task automation.

How to Restrict Telescope Access in Production

Laravel Telescope is not recommended for production, as it logs sensitive data.

To restrict access, modify your app/Providers/TelescopeServiceProvider.php:

protected function gate() { Gate::define('viewTelescope', function ($user) { return in_array($user->email, [ 'admin@example.com', ]); }); }

Now, only specific users (e.g., admin@example.com) can access Telescope.

Disabling Telescope in Production

If you want to completely disable Telescope in production, update your .env file:

TELESCOPE_ENABLED=false

Alternatively, you can remove Telescope using:

composer remove laravel/telescope

And delete the database tables using:

php artisan migrate:rollback --step=1

Final Thoughts

Laravel Telescope is an essential tool for Laravel developers, providing a robust debugging and monitoring solution. Whether you're working on a small project or a large-scale application, Telescope helps you gain deep insights into your application's performance, track issues efficiently, and optimize your workflow.

Why You Should Use Laravel Telescope:

✅ Easy to install and use
✅ Provides deep insights into your app
✅ Helps track performance issues
✅ Improves debugging efficiency

If you’re working on a Laravel project, give Telescope a try—it can save you hours of debugging time! 🚀

Frequently Asked Questions