Laravel 9.52 Upgrade & Hardening

Description:

Upgrade of an existing Laravel web application (a visit-booking portal with a public front end and an admin back office) to the latest supported version, including PHP version update and dependency review. The application currently runs on Laravel 9.52 and PHP 8.0, both of which are end-of-life.

The work also covers a set of security and code quality improvements, plus minor functional fixes, all detailed in a technical document that will be shared directly with the developer.

Scope of work

1. Framework upgrade

Upgrade Laravel from 9.x to the latest supported release (12 or 13), and PHP to 8.2+ (8.3 if targeting Laravel 13)
Update and audit third-party dependencies (composer audit), replacing abandoned packages where needed
Ensure full functional parity after the upgrade — no regressions in the booking flow or admin back office

2. Security remediation

Implementation of the security improvements identified in the audit report, covering database query handling, authentication and authorisation, route and request protection, data encryption, session and login controls, and server configuration
Full details will be shared privately with the developer

3. Functional fixes

Two known issues in the availability/calendar engine, both diagnosed with recommended solutions in the audit report