Set Base URL for Assets in Laravel Applications

Setting the Base URL for Assets in your Laravel Applications is very important to make sure all assets like stylesheets, images, and all javascript are properly loading and running without any issues.

Properly set or configured base URLs make sure that our application is accessible in different
types of environments like staging, and production.

1. asset() Helper Function

asset() helper function is very useful when it comes to loading assets of the application.

by default, this helps use the APP_URL value that is defined in the .env file.

2. APP_URL in the .env File

variable app_url in the configuration file decides the base URL of your application.

 APP_URL=http://shoplocal.test

For production update it to the live URL

 APP_URL=http://myabcshop.com

3. Steps to Set Base URL for Assets in Laravel Applications:

1. Using Content Delivery Network (CDN) for Hosting Assets

a) If you are planning to use CDN URLs for your Laravel application then. Open the environment configuration file .env in the root of your Laravel application. It looks something like the below screenshot.

b) Also add the CDN asset URL in AppServiceProvider to register this custom asset URL:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\URL;
public function boot()
{
   if (env('ASSET_URL')) 

  {
     URL::forceRootUrl(env('ASSET_URL'));
   }
}

Now after updating everything, it will generate CDN URLs for the application

Additionally, if we add or update the public value in asset_url like 

Add ASSET_URL=public 

it will set the asset folder path to the public folder

c) Clear the configuration cache 

To clear the configuration cache to get the updated setting from the configuration we need to run the

command

php artisan config:cache 

This will clear the cache of the configuration.