Installation

Install the free package with Composer:

composer require wirechat/wirechat

Wirechat Pro is optional. Activate it from an application that already has the free package installed:

php artisan wirechat:activate

The command asks for the email address on the license and the license key, then prepares Composer to download the private Pro package.

Get a Wirechat Pro license before running this command on a project that needs Pro features.

Activation creates an auth.json file in the project root. Composer uses that file for private package credentials, so keep it out of version control.

Single Project licenses require an activation domain or project ID. Use the same value for local development, CI, staging, and production for that project:

php artisan wirechat:activate --fingerprint=example.com

See Wirechat Pro for direct Pro installation, CI, Forge, and Laravel Cloud setup.

Publish Wirechat's configuration and starter files:

php artisan wirechat:install

The installer will:

• publish config/wirechat.php;
• publish migration files;
• create a default panel provider at app/Providers/Wirechat/ChatsPanelProvider.php;
• create a storage symlink;
• enable chat search and the new-chat action on the default panel.

After installation, continue to panel configuration to adjust routes, middleware, actions, and optional features.

This step is optional. To store conversation IDs as UUIDs, update config/wirechat.php before running migrations:

'uses_uuid_for_conversations' => true,

Configure this during initial setup only. After Wirechat tables exist, switching between UUIDs and auto-incrementing IDs is not supported.

Create the Wirechat database tables:

php artisan migrate

This creates the conversation, participant, message, group, attachment, request, setting, and related tables used by Wirechat features.

In newer Laravel applications, broadcasting is disabled by default. Enable it with:

php artisan install:broadcasting

Accept the Reverb and frontend package prompts when the application does not already have a WebSocket server.

Start Reverb during local development:

php artisan reverb:start

Run a queue worker for message broadcasts and related events:

php artisan queue:listen --queue=messages,default

Panels can customize these queue names with messagesQueue() and eventsQueue(). See Panels.

Laravel's default Composer dev command can run the server, queue worker, logs, and Vite together:

composer run dev

For applications that do not use that workflow, run the PHP server and frontend build separately:

php artisan serve
npm run dev