Laravel Pulse Monitoring

Laravel Pulse provides real-time application monitoring without external services. Track performance metrics, slow queries, and exceptions in a beautiful dashboard. At ZIRA Software, Pulse helps us identify issues before users notice.

Installation

composer require laravel/pulse

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Laravel\Pulse\PulseServiceProvider"

php artisan migrate

Dashboard Access

// routes/web.php
Route::get('/pulse', function () {
    // Authorization handled by gate
})->middleware(['auth'])->name('pulse');

// app/Providers/AppServiceProvider.php
use Laravel\Pulse\Facades\Pulse;

public function boot(): void
{
    Pulse::user(fn ($user) => [
        'name' => $user->name,
        'extra' => $user->email,
        'avatar' => $user->avatar_url,
    ]);
}

// Authorization gate
Gate::define('viewPulse', function (User $user) {
    return $user->hasRole('admin');
});

Configuration

// config/pulse.php
return [
    'enabled' => env('PULSE_ENABLED', true),

    'storage' => [
        'driver' => env('PULSE_STORAGE_DRIVER', 'database'),
        'database' => [
            'connection' => env('PULSE_DB_CONNECTION', null),
            'chunk' => 1000,
        ],
    ],

    'ingest' => [
        'driver' => env('PULSE_INGEST_DRIVER', 'storage'),
        'buffer' => env('PULSE_INGEST_BUFFER', 5000),
    ],

    'recorders' => [
        Recorders\CacheInteractions::class => [
            'enabled' => true,
            'sample_rate' => 1,
        ],
        Recorders\Exceptions::class => [
            'enabled' => true,
            'location' => true,
        ],
        Recorders\Queues::class => [
            'enabled' => true,
            'sample_rate' => 1,
        ],
        Recorders\SlowJobs::class => [
            'enabled' => true,
            'threshold' => 1000, // ms
        ],
        Recorders\SlowQueries::class => [
            'enabled' => true,
            'threshold' => 100, // ms
        ],
        Recorders\SlowRequests::class => [
            'enabled' => true,
            'threshold' => 1000, // ms
        ],
        Recorders\UserRequests::class => [
            'enabled' => true,
            'sample_rate' => 1,
        ],
    ],
];

Custom Cards

// app/Pulse/Cards/RevenueCard.php
namespace App\Pulse\Cards;

use Laravel\Pulse\Livewire\Card;
use Livewire\Attributes\Lazy;

#[Lazy]
class RevenueCard extends Card
{
    public function render()
    {
        $revenue = Order::where('created_at', '>=', now()->subDay())
            ->sum('total');

        return view('pulse.cards.revenue', [
            'revenue' => $revenue,
        ]);
    }
}

{{-- resources/views/pulse/cards/revenue.blade.php --}}
<x-pulse::card :cols="$cols" :rows="$rows" :class="$class">
    <x-pulse::card-header name="Today's Revenue">
        <x-slot:icon>
            <x-heroicon-o-currency-dollar />
        </x-slot:icon>
    </x-pulse::card-header>

    <div class="text-3xl font-bold text-gray-900 dark:text-gray-100">
        ${{ number_format($revenue, 2) }}
    </div>
</x-pulse::card>

Dashboard Layout

{{-- resources/views/vendor/pulse/dashboard.blade.php --}}
<x-pulse>
    <livewire:pulse.servers cols="full" />

    <livewire:pulse.usage cols="4" rows="2" />

    <livewire:pulse.queues cols="4" />

    <livewire:pulse.cache cols="4" />

    <livewire:pulse.slow-queries cols="8" />

    <livewire:pulse.exceptions cols="6" />

    <livewire:pulse.slow-requests cols="6" />

    <livewire:pulse.slow-jobs cols="6" />

    {{-- Custom card --}}
    <livewire:pulse.revenue-card cols="2" />
</x-pulse>

Recording Custom Metrics

use Laravel\Pulse\Facades\Pulse;

// Record a value
Pulse::record('api_calls', 'stripe', 1)->count();

// Record with timing
Pulse::record('external_api', 'payment_gateway', $responseTime)->avg();

// Record in specific context
Pulse::set('user_action', 'checkout', $userId);

Ignoring Routes and Jobs

// config/pulse.php
'recorders' => [
    Recorders\SlowRequests::class => [
        'enabled' => true,
        'threshold' => 1000,
        'ignore' => [
            '#^/health#',
            '#^/pulse#',
            '#^/_debugbar#',
        ],
    ],
    Recorders\SlowJobs::class => [
        'enabled' => true,
        'threshold' => 1000,
        'ignore' => [
            App\Jobs\LongRunningJob::class,
        ],
    ],
],

Sampling for High Traffic

// config/pulse.php
'recorders' => [
    Recorders\UserRequests::class => [
        'enabled' => true,
        'sample_rate' => 0.1, // 10% of requests
    ],
    Recorders\CacheInteractions::class => [
        'enabled' => true,
        'sample_rate' => 0.01, // 1% of interactions
    ],
],

Data Retention

# Prune old data (add to scheduler)
php artisan pulse:prune

# Custom retention
php artisan pulse:prune --hours=48

// app/Console/Kernel.php
protected function schedule(Schedule $schedule): void
{
    $schedule->command('pulse:prune')->daily();
}

Server Metrics

# Run the Pulse server daemon
php artisan pulse:check

// Supervisor config
[program:pulse]
command=php /var/www/app/artisan pulse:check
autostart=true
autorestart=true
user=www-data

Conclusion

Laravel Pulse provides comprehensive application monitoring with zero external dependencies. Real-time insights help identify and resolve performance issues quickly.

Need application monitoring? Contact ZIRA Software for DevOps and monitoring setup.