How do you create custom Artisan commands and schedule them with Laravel Task Scheduler?

Short answer

Create a command with make:command and implement its logic in handle(); schedule it in routes/console.php instead of adding multiple Cron entries to the server.

Explanation

Previously, running several tasks required adding a Cron line for each script on the server. In Laravel, add just one Cron entry: * * * * * php artisan schedule:run. It checks the tasks scheduled in code and runs those that are due, with options such as withoutOverlapping to prevent a task from running again before it finishes and onOneServer to run it on one server only.

Code example

Schedule::command('reports:generate')
    ->dailyAt('02:00')
    ->withoutOverlapping()
    ->onOneServer();

Common mistakes

• Forgetting withoutOverlapping for long-running tasks, causing duplicate instances to compete for the same data and exhaust server resources.

Follow-up questions

• Why should you never call env() outside config/ files in Laravel projects?

Sources

• Laravel docs — Task Scheduling