Laravel 13.26.0

Release Date: August 18, 2026

I spent the morning pulling Laravel 13.26.0 into a couple of existing apps — one queue-heavy API, one plain CRUD admin — and the verdict landed fast: this is a queue-and-Redis release disguised as a routine patch. Update now.

The Worth-It Verdict

If you run queues, Redis clusters, or process pools in production, 13.26.0 fixes things you have probably already felt. If you don't, there's still a genuinely fun new filesystem feature waiting. Either way: update now.

New Toys I Actually Used

Read-through filesystems — Taylor Otwell's addition lets a filesystem fall back to a remote source and cache locally. I wired S3 behind local disk in about ten lines, with an option to skip the copy.
Queue::forward() — a first-class way to push a job forward through the pipeline instead of hand-rolling chains.
Debounceable queued listeners — collapsing rapid-fire events into one queued listener run. My webhook endpoint just got quieter.
JobReleased event — fired from the worker when a job is released; I hooked it straight into my dead-letter alerting.
managedQueues() — the Cloud queue now exposes its managed queues programmatically.

Eloquent Wins

inOrderOf() now accepts enums, not just scalars.
orWhereKey() and orWhereKeyNot() join the builder — no more awkward closures for key-based OR conditions.
wherePivot() / orWherePivot() accept closures for complex pivot constraints.

The Redis Cluster Grind

Multiple fixes target Redis cluster pain: the infinite scan loop when pruning stale cache tags is gone, the phpredis client rebuilds itself after a cluster response error or failed pipeline/transaction (so the connection stays usable), and a connector is passed to PhpRedisClusterConnection so it can rebuild its client. If you have seen mysterious connection-lost cascades, this is your release.

Processes and Testing

Process pools are now iterable, idle timeouts throw a dedicated exception, and there are fake assertion helpers for process commands — including array command support. db:seed also reports progress when you target a specific class, which I did not know I wanted until I used it.

Fixes Worth Knowing

throwUnless() silently did nothing when handed a closure — fixed.
Request::all() preserves input key order when merging files.
Guzzle 8 is supported.
The in validation rule can't be bypassed via loose comparison.
MySQL 9.7 (LTS) is now in the test matrix — good sign for the road ahead.