Laravel

Monitor a Laravel app: a terminable middleware logging each request with status, auth event listeners for sign-ins, and beam monitor with the Laravel and PHP rules, Ignition included.

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How Beam reads a Laravel app

There's no in-process SDK for this stack, so the app writes what Beam needs to its logs and beam monitor reads them on the same server or container. Only redacted findings leave it. Two kinds of line:

  • One JSON line per request, with method, path (with the query string), status, ip, user_agent, host and duration_ms. The status is what lets Beam tell an attack your app refused from one it answered.
  • Security events as plain lines, worded like this (Beam matches the wording and reads user= and ip=):
Code
login failed user=42 ip=203.0.113.7
login succeeded user=42 ip=203.0.113.7
granted admin role to user=99 by user=12
API key created user=12
{"event":"llm_usage","user":"42","model":"gpt-5","total_tokens":1834}

Use an opaque user id, never an email. New outbound hosts are only reported by the Node.js SDK; for this stack, restrict outbound traffic at the network instead.

Before you start

Do steps 1 and 2 of the general cookbook first: App monitoring is on, the app is added, and its beam_app_ token is in your secret store as BEAM_APP_TOKEN. Everything below needs @agent-beam/beam 0.2.32 or newer.

Add two log channels

Code
// config/logging.php, inside 'channels'
'beam_requests' => ['driver' => 'single', 'path' => storage_path('logs/beam-requests.log'), 'formatter' => Monolog\Formatter\LineFormatter::class, 'formatter_with' => ['format' => "%message%\n"]],
'beam_security' => ['driver' => 'single', 'path' => storage_path('logs/beam-security.log'), 'formatter' => Monolog\Formatter\LineFormatter::class, 'formatter_with' => ['format' => "%message%\n"]],

Log each request with its status

Code
// app/Http/Middleware/BeamRequestLog.php
namespace App\Http\Middleware;

use Closure;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Log;

class BeamRequestLog
{
    public function handle(Request $request, Closure $next)
    {
        $request->attributes->set('beam_started', microtime(true));
        return $next($request);
    }

    public function terminate(Request $request, $response): void
    {
        Log::channel('beam_requests')->info(json_encode([
            'method' => $request->method(),
            'path' => $request->getRequestUri(),
            'status' => $response->getStatusCode(),
            'ip' => $request->ip(),
            'user_agent' => (string) $request->userAgent(),
            'host' => $request->getHost(),
            'duration_ms' => (int) round((microtime(true) - $request->attributes->get('beam_started', microtime(true))) * 1000),
        ], JSON_UNESCAPED_SLASHES));
    }
}

Register it globally (in bootstrap/app.php on Laravel 11+: ->withMiddleware(fn ($m) => $m->prepend(\App\Http\Middleware\BeamRequestLog::class))). Keep JSON_UNESCAPED_SLASHES: escaped slashes would hide paths like ../../etc/passwd from the rules. Configure TrustProxies so $request->ip() is the client.

Log sign-ins, admins and keys

Code
// app/Providers/AppServiceProvider.php, in boot()
use Illuminate\Auth\Events\{Failed, Login};
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\{Event, Log};

Event::listen(Login::class, fn (Login $e) =>
    Log::channel('beam_security')->info("login succeeded user={$e->user->getAuthIdentifier()} ip=".request()->ip()));
Event::listen(Failed::class, fn (Failed $e) =>
    Log::channel('beam_security')->warning("login failed user=".($e->user?->getAuthIdentifier() ?? '')." ip=".request()->ip()));

Where you grant admin rights or create tokens (for example $user->createToken() with Sanctum):

Code
Log::channel('beam_security')->info("granted admin role to user={$target->id} by user={$request->user()->id}");
Log::channel('beam_security')->info("API key created user={$request->user()->id}");

Run beam monitor next to the app

Code
npm install -g @agent-beam/beam
beam monitor --stack laravel --file /srv/app/storage/logs/beam-requests.log --file /srv/app/storage/logs/beam-security.log --app /srv/app

--stack laravel turns on this framework's rules and rolls up attacks on frameworks you don't run; --app also checks the app's lockfiles daily (and would detect the stack on its own). Keep it running with systemd:

Code
# /etc/systemd/system/beam-monitor.service
[Unit]
Description=AgentBeam App monitoring
After=network-online.target

[Service]
EnvironmentFile=/etc/beam/app.env
ExecStart=/usr/bin/env beam monitor --stack laravel --file /srv/app/storage/logs/beam-requests.log --file /srv/app/storage/logs/beam-security.log --app /srv/app
Restart=always
User=beam

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Code
sudo install -m 600 /dev/null /etc/beam/app.env && echo "BEAM_APP_TOKEN=beam_app_..." | sudo tee /etc/beam/app.env >/dev/null
sudo systemctl daemon-reload && sudo systemctl enable --now beam-monitor

In Docker or Kubernetes, run the same command in a sidecar that mounts the log directory read-only, with BEAM_APP_TOKEN from a secret.

Prove it works

Code
beam monitor status   # app, level, stack, usage
beam monitor test     # a test finding through your alert workflows
curl -s "https://your-app.example.com/?id=1%20UNION%20SELECT%201" -o /dev/null

Within a minute, the SQL injection test shows on App monitoring: under Needs action if the app answered 2xx, or counted under "needed nothing from you" if it refused it. Then sign in to a test account with a wrong password ten times and the right one once: Sign-in succeeded after 10 failed attempts appears as critical.

Check dependencies on every pull request

Code
# .github/workflows/beam-cve.yml
name: Dependency check
on: [pull_request]
jobs:
  cve:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: npx -y @agent-beam/beam cve check . --fail-on high
        env:
          BEAM_APP_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.BEAM_APP_TOKEN }}

composer.lock is checked.

What Beam watches for on this stack

Besides every built-in rule and the attack-in-progress signals:

RuleMeansSeverity
Laravel Ignition remote code executionA request to /_ignition/execute-solution (CVE-2021-3129)Critical
Laravel debug tools or logs servedTelescope, Horizon, Debugbar or storage/logs/laravel.log answered 2xxHigh
PHPUnit eval-stdinvendor/phpunit/.../eval-stdin.php (CVE-2017-9841)Critical
PHP-CGI argument injection?-d allow_url_include=1 style requests (CVE-2024-4577)Critical
PHP stream wrappersphp://filter, phar:// and similar in a requestHigh
.env served.env answered 2xxHigh

Attacks on other frameworks (WordPress probes, Laravel or Spring exploits, and so on) are rolled up as Not your stack when there's no status to say otherwise, and never alert.

Close what Beam would catch

Beam raises these when they're found; better that there's nothing to find:

  • APP_DEBUG=false and APP_ENV=production; keep spatie/laravel-ignition in require-dev and run composer install --no-dev.
  • Gate Telescope and Horizon (viewTelescope, viewHorizon), and point the web root at public/ only, so vendor/, storage/ and .env are never served.

Coverage checklist

FeatureDone when
Request log with statusFindings show Answered, Refused or Errored
Stack declaredbeam monitor prints the stack at start
Sign-in eventslogin failed and login succeeded lines are written
Admin and key eventsRole grants and new keys are logged
LLM spendAn llm_usage line follows each model call
Dependency checksThe CI job runs on pull requests
AlertsCritical pages someone, high reaches a channel (step 8)
RoutineSomeone reads Needs action daily and Attack analytics weekly

Set this up with your coding agent

Install the agentbeam-setup skill for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, OpenCode and Copilot, then ask your agent to set up AgentBeam on this machine. Beam scans the skill before it installs.

npx -y @agent-beam/beam add skill agentbeam-setup -g --all-agents
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