laravel-totem: Open Source Scheduling & Event Management

What is laravel-totem?

What it is

Laravel Totem is a PHP package for Laravel applications that provides a web dashboard for managing Laravel's task scheduling. It lives in the Laravel ecosystem and integrates with Laravel Console Commands, Artisan commands, and the framework's existing scheduler.

The concrete problem it solves is that scheduled tasks normally require code changes, redeployment, or direct editing of the Laravel schedule. Totem lets users schedule Artisan commands from the dashboard, enable or disable tasks on the fly, and keep recurring console work under browser-based control after a single cron entry is in place.

Key capabilities

Laravel Totem provides a web dashboard at /totem for creating, editing, enabling, and disabling scheduled tasks.
It schedules Laravel Console Commands and Artisan commands without editing application code after the schedule:run cron entry is configured.
The package supports dashboard authentication through a Totem::auth callback, following the pattern used by Laravel Horizon.
An Artisan command dropdown can be filtered with fnmatch patterns, which can act as a whitelist or a blacklist.
Totem can send email notifications when a task completes, and optional Slack or Vonage SMS channels can be added through Laravel notification packages.
Configuration options include a database table prefix, middleware customization, and a named cache store for environments where UI and worker servers use different cache clusters.

Who uses it and how

Laravel application owners use it to manage recurring Artisan commands from a browser instead of editing the scheduler in code.
Teams that already run a minute-based cron job use Totem as the control layer for which commands are enabled or disabled.
Administrators can create or edit tasks in the dashboard, then rely on Laravel's schedule:run entry to execute the selected commands.
Developers in split infrastructure environments configure TOTEM_CACHE_STORE so scheduling state remains consistent across servers that use separate cache clusters.
Projects with generic table names use TOTEM_TABLE_PREFIX to avoid conflicts with existing database tables and models.

Getting started

Install the package with composer require studio/laravel-totem, run php artisan migrate, and publish assets with php artisan totem:assets. After that, configure a cron entry for php artisan schedule:run and open /totem in the application.

When to use it — and when not to

Use it when you want a Laravel-native dashboard for Artisan scheduling and can maintain a minute-based cron entry, migrations, cache consistency, and notification channels. Do not use it if the dashboard must work without authentication changes, because Totem's dashboard only works in the local environment by default. A weakness is that generic table names may conflict with existing tables, and split cache clusters can cause inconsistent UI or worker state unless TOTEM_CACHE_STORE is set.

project readme (upstream, from github) — read inline

Laravel Totem

Introduction

Manage your Laravel Schedule from a pretty dashboard. Schedule your Laravel Console Commands to your liking. Enable/Disable scheduled tasks on the fly without going back to your code again.

Documentation

Compatibility Matrix

Laravel	Totem
12.x	11.x
11.x	11.x

Requirements

PHP 8.2+
Laravel 11.x or 12.x

Installing

Use composer to install Totem into your Laravel project:

composer require studio/laravel-totem

Once Laravel Totem is installed, run the migration and publish the assets:

php artisan migrate
php artisan totem:assets

Updating

Republish Totem assets after updating to a new version:

php artisan totem:assets

Configuration

Cron Job

This package assumes that you have a good understanding of Laravel's Task Scheduling and Laravel Console Commands. Before any of this works please make sure you have a cron running as follows:

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

Web Dashboard

Laravel Totem's dashboard is inspired by Laravel Horizon. Just like Horizon you can configure authentication to Totem's dashboard. Add the following to the boot method of your AppServiceProvider:

use Studio\Totem\Totem;

Totem::auth(function($request) {
    // return true / false . For e.g.
    return Auth::check();
});

By default Totem's dashboard only works in the local environment. To view the dashboard point your browser to /totem of your app.

Table Prefix

Totem's tables use generic names which may conflict with existing tables in a project. To alleviate this the .env param TOTEM_TABLE_PREFIX can be set which will apply a prefix to all of Totem's tables and their models.

Cache Store

By default Totem uses your application's default cache store. In environments where UI servers and background worker servers use separate cache clusters (e.g. different Redis instances), Totem's cache can become inconsistent — a bust event on one server won't clear the cache on the other.

Set TOTEM_CACHE_STORE to a named store from your config/cache.php that is accessible by all servers:

TOTEM_CACHE_STORE=redis-shared

Setting it to array disables cache persistence entirely (each request hits the database):

TOTEM_CACHE_STORE=array

Leaving it unset uses your application's default cache store (existing behaviour).

Filter Commands Dropdown

By default Totem outputs all Artisan commands on the Create/Edit tasks. To make this dropdown more concise there is a filter config feature that can be set in the totem.php config file.

Example filters:

'artisan' => [
    'command_filter' => [
        'stats:*',
        'email:daily-reports'
    ],
],

This feature uses fnmatch syntax to filter displayed commands. stats:* will match all Artisan commands that start with stats: while email:daily-reports will only match the command named email:daily-reports.

This filter can be used as either a whitelist or a blacklist. By default it acts as a whitelist but an option flag can be set to instead act as a blacklist:

'artisan' => [
    'command_filter' => [
        'stats:*',
        'email:daily-reports'
    ],
    'whitelist' => false,
],

Middleware

Laravel Totem uses the web middleware by default. If customization is required the middleware can be changed by setting the TOTEM_WEB_MIDDLEWARE value in your .env. These values can be found in config/totem.php.

Notifications

Totem can send notifications when a task completes. Email notifications are included out of the box. For SMS (Vonage) or Slack notifications, install the relevant package:

composer require laravel/vonage-notification-channel
composer require laravel/slack-notification-channel

Making Commands Available in `Laravel Totem`

All artisan commands are available for scheduling. If you want to hide a command from Totem set the hidden attribute to true in your command:

protected $hidden = true;

Command Parameters

If your command requires arguments or options use the optional command parameters field. You can provide parameters as a string in the following format:

name=john.doe --greetings='Welcome to the new world'

In the example above, name is an argument while greetings is an option.

Console Command

Totem provides an artisan command to view a list of scheduled tasks:

php artisan schedule:list

Screenshots

Task List

Task Details

Edit Task

Artisan Command to view scheduled tasks

Changelog

Important versions listed below. Refer to the Changelog for a full history of the project.

Credits

Bug reports, feature requests, and pull requests can be submitted by following our Contribution Guide.

Contributing & Protocols

License

This software is released under the MIT License.

Frequently asked questions

Is laravel-totem free to use?

laravel-totem is open source under the MIT licence. There is no licence fee and no seat count — you can self-host it or, where the project offers one, pay a vendor for a managed version instead.

What does laravel-totem do?

Manage Your Laravel Schedule From A Web Dashboard

What is laravel-totem written in?

laravel-totem is primarily written in PHP. Its source is publicly available at https://github.com/always-open/laravel-totem, and it has 1,816 GitHub stars.