Dev Harper

Overview Efficient queue management defines modern PHP applications. Laravel Horizon provides a beautiful dashboard and code-driven configuration for your Redis queues, while Laravel Forge simplifies the server management. Integrating them isn't just about turning on a switch; it's about ensuring your queue workers restart during deployments and that your performance metrics persist through scheduled snapshots. This guide walks through the automated and manual steps to sync these powerful tools. Prerequisites Before proceeding, ensure you have a server provisioned via Laravel Forge and a repository deployed. You should have Laravel Horizon already installed in your application via Composer and its configuration file published. Key Libraries & Tools - **Laravel Horizon**: A monitoring tool that provides a dashboard for Redis-powered Laravel queues. - **Laravel Forge**: A server management platform for deploying and scaling PHP applications. - **Artisan**: The command-line interface included with Laravel. - **Redis**: The in-memory data structure store used as the queue backend. Code Walkthrough To keep Laravel Horizon healthy, you must update your deployment script in the Forge UI. Add the following command to ensure the process restarts whenever you push new code: ```bash Forge Deployment Script php artisan horizon:terminate ``` This command signals the current Horizon master process to terminate after it finishes its current jobs. Forge then automatically restarts it via a daemon, ensuring your workers always run the latest version of your code. Enabling Metrics with the Scheduler Horizon features a metrics dashboard that tracks job throughput and wait times. This data requires the `horizon:snapshot` command to run every five minutes. To handle this, ensure your `routes/console.php` or `app/Console/Kernel.php` contains the scheduled task, then enable the Laravel Scheduler in Forge. ```php // routes/console.php use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schedule; Schedule::command('horizon:snapshot')->everyFiveMinutes(); ``` Syntax Notes The `horizon:terminate` command is preferred over simply killing the process because it allows for "graceful" termination. It respects the `timeout` settings in your `config/horizon.php`, ensuring jobs aren't hard-killed mid-execution. Tips & Gotchas - **Daemons**: When you toggle the Horizon switch in Forge, it creates a system daemon. Do not manually create a separate worker daemon for the same queue, as they will conflict. - **Snapshotting**: If your metrics dashboard is empty, verify the Laravel Scheduler is active. Without `artisan schedule:run` active in your system's crontab, Horizon cannot record the state of your queues.