FastRefreshDatabase for Laravel 🚀

Have you ever come across an issue where the traditional RefreshDatabase trait takes ages to run tests when you have lots of migrations? If so, you may be after this package!

The Problem

Traditionally, the RefreshDatabase trait will run php artisan migrate:fresh every time you run tests. After the first test, it will use transactions to roll back the data and run the next one, so subsequent tests are fast, but the initial test is slow. This can be really annoying if you are used to running a single test, as it could take seconds to run a single test.

The Solution

You don't need to run php artisan migrate:fresh every time you run tests, only when you add a new migration or change an old one. The FastRefreshDatabase trait will create a checksum of your migrations folder as well as your current Git branch. It will then create a checksum file in your application's storage/app directory. When your migrations change or your branch changes, the checksum won't match the cached one and php artisan migrate:fresh is run.

When you don't make any changes, it will continue to use the same database without refreshing, which can speed up the test time by 100x!

Benchmarks

Running a single test, with about 400 migrations.

Processor	Before	After
Intel Core i5	30 seconds	100 milliseconds
Apple M1 Pro	5 seconds	100 milliseconds

Installation

Install the package with Composer

composer require plannr/laravel-fast-refresh-database --dev

Adding to your TestCase

Next, just replace the existing RefreshDatabase trait you are using in your TestCase file with the FastRefreshDatabase trait

<?php

namespace Tests;

use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\TestCase as BaseTestCase;
-use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\RefreshDatabase;
+use Plannr\Laravel\FastRefreshDatabase\Traits\FastRefreshDatabase;

abstract class TestCase extends BaseTestCase
{
    use CreatesApplication;
-   use RefreshDatabase;
+   use FastRefreshDatabase;
}

Using Pest

Just replace the uses line in your Pest.php file

-use Illuminate\Foundation\Testing\RefreshDatabase;
+use Plannr\Laravel\FastRefreshDatabase\Traits\FastRefreshDatabase;

-uses(RefreshDatabase::class)->in(__DIR__);
uses(FastRefreshDatabase::class)->in('Feature');

Deleting The Migration Checksum

Sometimes you may wish to force-update database migrations, to do this, locate the migration-checksum_{Database Name Slug}.txt file within storage/app.

Customising the checksum file location

You may customise the migration checksum file location and name by extending the trait and overwriting the getMigrationChecksumFile() method.

protected function getMigrationChecksumFile(): string
{
    return storage_path('custom/some-other-file.txt');
}

ParaTest Databases

Parallel testing databases contain tokens that serve as unique identifiers for each test runner. This makes the trait inherently able to support parallel testing without any extra effort, because the database name is stored in the checksum file name.