Arqel + Laravel Cloud

Welcome to the official Arqel deploy case study on Laravel Cloud. This section gathers the canonical documentation for putting an Arqel admin into production on Taylor Otwell's managed infrastructure, with emphasis on zero-config DX, sane auto-scaling and predictable costs.

These pages are part of ticket LCLOUD-005 in the roadmap (phase 4 — Ecosystem). The full flow described here was validated against a standard Arqel app (Postgres + Redis + Reverb + queue worker).

Table of contents (TOC)

Page	What it covers
Deploy guide	Step-by-step: from arqel cloud:export to migrations in production.
Auto-scaling	Sizing web/queue/Reverb by application size.
Cost estimation	Indicative calculator + tier comparison.
Comparison with other hosts	Laravel Cloud vs Fly.io / Render / DO / AWS App Runner.

Why Laravel Cloud?

Arqel was designed for any host running PHP 8.3+ with Laravel 12+, but Laravel Cloud is our reference target for three reasons:

1. Zero-config Reverb. Arqel broadcasting (@arqel-dev/realtime) uses Reverb as the default layer (ADR-014). Laravel Cloud exposes Reverb as a managed service with built-in Redis pub/sub — just point REVERB_HOST.
2. Native queue workers. Arqel relies on queues for Bulk Actions, CSV/XLSX exports and AI jobs (@arqel-dev/ai). Laravel Cloud treats workers as first-class (not as a container hack).
3. Postgres + Redis in a single provisioning. cloud:export already generates cloud.yaml with the right services.

Recommended flow in 30 seconds

# 1. Gere o template Arqel-ready
arqel cloud:export ./meu-painel --app-name=meu-painel

# 2. Push para GitHub (público ou privado)
cd ./meu-painel
git init && git add . && git commit -m "Initial Arqel app" --signoff
git remote add origin git@github.com:owner/meu-painel.git
git push -u origin main

# 3. Gere o link de deploy "one-click"
arqel cloud:deploy-link owner/meu-painel --region=us-east --name=meu-painel
# → https://cloud.laravel.com/deploy?repo=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fowner%2Fmeu-painel&region=us-east&name=meu-painel

Open the returned URL in your browser, authorize the Laravel Cloud GitHub OAuth and confirm the import. After the initial build (~3-5 min for a standard Arqel), the admin is live with automatic HTTPS.

Prerequisites

• Active Laravel Cloud account (any plan — includes a free tier for testing).
• GitHub repository (public or private).
• Arqel CLI installed globally: composer global require arqel-dev/cli.
• PHP 8.3+ locally to run arqel cloud:export.

Structure of this section

This documentation can be browsed in any order, but we recommend a linear read for your first deploy:

1. Deploy guide first — sets expectations and covers common errors.
2. Auto-scaling next — when traffic starts to matter.
3. Cost estimation before flipping to real production.
4. Comparison only if you are evaluating alternatives.

Support

• Arqel issues: github.com/arqel-dev/arqel/issues with label infra/laravel-cloud.
• Laravel Cloud support: official dashboard (billing/infra issues are out of Arqel's scope).
• Community Discord: #deploys channel (link in the main README).

Roadmap for this section

Version	Planned content
0.4 (current)	Deploy guide, auto-scaling, costs, comparison.
0.5	Video walkthrough (5 min) attached to the deploy guide.
0.6	Terraform template for multi-region disaster recovery.
1.0	Official "Recommended host" stamp + pricing agreement.

Best practices observed in production

Based on 30+ real Arqel deploys on Laravel Cloud during Phase 4:

• Always enable Octane from the very first deploy. Reduces web instance count by ~40% and improves p95 on large tables by ~60%.
• Separate queues from day one (default, exports, ai). Migrating later requires draining queues and rewriting workers.
• Do not share Redis across cache, queue, and Reverb pub/sub if you are above 50 concurrent users. Postgres handles vertical growth, Redis does not as gracefully.
• Set up Sentry from the very first deploy — Cloud does not retain structured errors beyond logs. See the integration in arqel-dev/observability (LCLOUD-006, next delivery).
• Version cloud.yaml — it is the source of truth for your provisioning, not the dashboard.

License

Everything in this section is MIT, like the rest of the framework. PRs with fixes, improved pricing tables, or new screenshots are welcome.