Console

In addition to the admin dashboard, Flarum provides several console commands to help manage your forum over the terminal.

Using the console:

1. ssh into the server where your flarum installation is hosted
2. cd to the folder that contains the file flarum
3. Run the command via php flarum [command]

Default Commands

list

Lists all available management commands, as well as instructions for using management commands

help

php flarum help [command_name]

Displays help output for a given command.

You can also output the help in other formats by using the --format option:

php flarum help --format=xml list

To display the list of available commands, please use the list command.

info

php flarum info

Get information about Flarum's core and installed extensions. This is very useful for debugging issues, and should be shared when requesting support.

tinker

php flarum tinker

Opens an interactive PHP shell (a REPL) with your Flarum application fully booted. This lets you inspect and manipulate your forum's data and services directly, without writing a throwaway script or clicking through the admin UI. It is powered by PsySH.

This is primarily a tool for maintainers and extension developers when debugging, inspecting data, or performing one-off data fix-ups.

Coming from Laravel?

Flarum's tinker uses the same underlying REPL (PsySH) as Laravel's, but it is not the laravel/tinker package — Flarum does not build on Laravel's full framework. In practice this means:

• There is no tinker.php config file, and Laravel's facades are not registered. If you reach for one out of habit (e.g. DB::table(...)), the shell will point you to the Flarum equivalent — resolve services through the container instead (resolve(...) or the variables listed below). The $db variable is the equivalent of the DB facade.
• Short-name model aliasing only applies to Eloquent models (e.g. User), and resolves to Flarum's classes such as Flarum\User\User, not App\Models\User.

This runs real code against your live forum

tinker gives you unrestricted access to your database and application. There is no undo. A single line can permanently delete data, and because writes go through Eloquent they fire the same events, observers, and cascades as the running application — a ->delete() here behaves exactly as it would in production.

• Take a database backup before making any changes.
• Prefer running read-only inspection first; only run writes when you are certain what they will do.
• Treat it with the same care as running SQL directly against your production database.

Once inside the shell, the following variables and helpers are available to save you typing out fully-qualified class names:

Available	What it is
$container	The Flarum application (service container).
$settings	The settings repository (SettingsRepositoryInterface).
$db	The database connection.
$events	The event dispatcher.
$extensions	The extension manager.
resolve(...)	Resolve any other binding from the container, e.g. resolve(Flarum\Http\UrlGenerator::class).

In addition, Eloquent models can be referenced by their short name — User instead of Flarum\User\User. This works for models provided by core and by installed extensions.

Run flarum inside the shell at any time to reprint this list of available variables and helpers, or help for PsySH's own commands.

Examples

Inspect your forum's data:

>>> User::count();
=> 350

>>> User::find(1)->username;
=> "admin"

>>> Discussion::count();
=> 467

Read and change settings:

>>> $settings->get('forum_title');
=> "My Forum"

>>> $settings->set('forum_title', 'My Renamed Forum');
=> null

Check which extensions are enabled:

>>> count($extensions->getEnabledExtensions());
=> 12

>>> $extensions->isEnabled('flarum-tags');
=> true

Run a raw query against the database:

>>> $db->table('users')->where('is_email_confirmed', false)->count();
=> 6

Resolve any service from the container:

>>> resolve(Flarum\Http\UrlGenerator::class)->to('forum')->base();
=> "https://my-forum.example.com"

Type exit (or press Ctrl+D) to leave the shell.

Running a single expression

To run one snippet without entering the interactive shell — useful for scripts or quick one-liners — pass it with the --execute (-e) option. The result is printed and the command exits:

$ php flarum tinker --execute "User::count()"
=> 350

$ php flarum tinker -e "\$settings->get('forum_title')"
=> "My Forum"

When run this way, collections are printed in a compact form (e.g. Collection {#123}). Append ->all() or ->toArray() to see their contents:

$ php flarum tinker -e "Group::pluck('name_singular', 'id')->all()"

If the code throws, the error is printed and the command exits with a non-zero status, so it can be used safely in scripts.

cache:clear

php flarum cache:clear

Clears the backend flarum cache, including generated js/css, text formatter cache, and cached translations. This should be run after installing or removing extensions, and running this should be the first step when issues occur.

assets:publish

php flarum assets:publish

Publish assets from core and extensions (e.g. compiled JS/CSS, bootstrap icons, logos, etc). This is useful if your assets have become corrupted, or if you have switched filesystem drivers for the flarum-assets disk.

migrate

php flarum migrate

Runs all outstanding migrations. This should be used when an extension that modifies the database is added or updated.

If you run Flarum on multiple servers or containers that share one database, several instances may try to run migrations at the same time during a deployment, causing all but one of them to fail. To prevent this, pass the --isolated option: the command will then only run if no other instance of it is currently running, and will exit successfully otherwise. This requires all instances to communicate with the same central cache server.

php flarum migrate --isolated

migrate:reset

php flarum migrate:reset --extension [extension_id]

Reset all migrations for an extension. This is mostly used by extension developers, but on occasion, you might need to run this if you are removing an extension, and want to clear all of its data from the database. Please note that the extension in question must currently be installed (but not necessarily enabled) for this to work.

schedule:run

php flarum schedule:run

Many extensions use scheduled jobs to run tasks on a regular interval. This could include database cleanups, posting scheduled drafts, generating sitemaps, etc. If any of your extensions use scheduled jobs, you should add a cron job to run this command on a regular interval:

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

This command should generally not be run manually.

Note that some hosts do not allow you to edit cron configuration directly. In this case, you should consult your host for more information on how to schedule cron jobs.

schedule:list

php flarum schedule:list

This command returns a list of scheduled commands (see schedule:run for more information). This is useful for confirming that commands provided by your extensions are registered properly. This can not check that cron jobs have been scheduled successfully, or are being run.