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Installation

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Requirements

  • PHP 8.2 or higher
  • Laravel 10.x, 11.x, or 12.x
  • A valid API key from a supported LLM provider

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Install via Composer

composer require cognesy/instructor-laravel
# @doctest id="efd1"
The package uses Laravel’s auto-discovery, so the service provider and facades are registered automatically.

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Publish Configuration

Publish the configuration file to customize settings: 
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=instructor-config
# @doctest id="e2b4"
This creates config/instructor.php with all available options.

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Configure API Keys

Add your LLM provider API key to .env: 
# OpenAI (default)
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...

# Or Anthropic
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...

# Or other providers
GEMINI_API_KEY=...
GROQ_API_KEY=...
MISTRAL_API_KEY=...
// @doctest id="e359"

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Verify Installation

Run the installation command to verify everything is configured correctly: 
php artisan instructor:install
# @doctest id="09dc"
This will:
  1. Publish the configuration if not already published
  2. Check for API key configuration
  3. Show next steps

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Test Your Connection

Test that your API configuration is working: 
php artisan instructor:test
# @doctest id="62bc"
Or test a specific connection: 
php artisan instructor:test --preset=anthropic
# @doctest id="1960"

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Optional: Publish Stubs

If you want to customize the response model stubs: 
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=instructor-stubs
# @doctest id="123f"
This publishes stubs to stubs/instructor/ in your application.

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Manual Registration (Optional)

If you’ve disabled auto-discovery, manually register the service provider in config/app.php: 
'providers' => [
    // ...
    Cognesy\Instructor\Laravel\InstructorServiceProvider::class,
],

'aliases' => [
    // ...
    'StructuredOutput' => Cognesy\Instructor\Laravel\Facades\StructuredOutput::class,
    'Inference' => Cognesy\Instructor\Laravel\Facades\Inference::class,
    'Embeddings' => Cognesy\Instructor\Laravel\Facades\Embeddings::class,
],
// @doctest id="17a6"

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Upgrading

When upgrading to a new version, republish the configuration if there are new options: 
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=instructor-config --force
# @doctest id="1a82"
Review the changelog for breaking changes.

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Next Steps