How Laravel Processes Every Incoming Web Request: A Step-by-Step Breakdown

Every Laravel request begins at public/index.php, which loads the Composer autoloader and bootstraps the application before passing control to the HTTP Kernel. The Kernel initializes bootstrappers for error handling, logging, and environment detection, while also running all registered HTTP middleware for session management and CSRF verification. Service providers are then loaded from config/app.php, with Laravel calling each provider's register() method first to bind services, followed by boot() to finalize setup. The RouteServiceProvider matches the incoming request to a defined route or controller, which executes the business logic and prepares a response in the form of a view, JSON, or other format. Finally, the HTTP Kernel returns the response object to index.php, which calls the send() method to deliver the output to the user's browser.