In this tutorial we're going to learn how to setup and use scheduled tasks with Laravel to perform the same tasks on a regular timescale.

To use scheduled tasks in Laravel it will use your server cron jobs. What makes this different to just setting up a cron jobs is that Laravel will only have on entry in your cron job setup.

Before if you want to create a scheduled task you will have to setup each task as it's own cron job, with Laravel you only need to do this once.

* * * * * cd /path-to-your-project && php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

Define Jobs

To define your scheduled jobs you need to use the app/Console/Kernel.php file and add a method for schedule.

    /**
     * Define the application's command schedule.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Console\Scheduling\Schedule  $schedule
     * @return void
     */
    protected function schedule(Schedule $schedule)
    {

    }

There are a few ways you can run different bits of code off the Schedule class using the following methods.

• command - To run an artisan command
• call - To run a callback function
• job - To dispatch a specific job.
• exec - To execute a specific shell command

When Tasks Will Run

You can fully customise when to run the command defined on the scheduler. You can select to define a cron settings, run every X minutes, run hourly, run daily, run weekly, run monthly etc.

Running a Command Daily

Below is the example code you will use to run an artisan command every day.

<?php

namespace App\Console;

use App\Console\Commands\ArtisanCommand;
use Illuminate\Console\Scheduling\Schedule;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Console\Kernel as ConsoleKernel;

class Kernel extends ConsoleKernel
{
    /**
     * The Artisan commands provided by your application.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected $commands = [
        ArtisanCommand::class
    ];

    /**
     * Define the application's command schedule.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Console\Scheduling\Schedule  $schedule
     * @return void
     */
    protected function schedule(Schedule $schedule)
    {
        $schedule->command(ArtisanCommand::class)->daily();
    }
}

This uses the $schedule class to run a command ->command($commandClassName) then we set it to run ->daily(), which will run everyday at midnight.