Modern Workflow

Bill Elgin's modern workflow is a system that blends AI-accelerated development, structured Laravel conventions, and tightly controlled deployment processes into a single, repeatable framework. Projects begin in a streamlined local environment powered by Herd and refined through Cursor IDE, where AI handles scaffolding, refactoring, and rapid iteration while maintaining the minimal, component-driven architecture defined by the Golden Template. Design tokens, Blade components, typography scales, and spacing rules are all generated and managed through this unified system, ensuring that every new project inherits the same clean structure and UI consistency.

The workflow continues through automated deployments using GitHub Actions, which build versioned release directories, manage environment-specific .env handling, and update atomic symlinks for instant and reliable rollouts. Staging and production stay perfectly aligned, backed by daily and monthly server-side backup scripts that preserve databases and critical assets without manual intervention. Together, these tools form a disciplined, scalable process where AI, Laravel, and architectural clarity work in sync—allowing new applications to start clean, evolve quickly, and remain maintainable over their entire lifecycle.