Claude Code remote setup for Laravel

When you use Claude Code on the web, your code runs in a sandboxed VM that starts fresh each session. The VM is configured for typical dev workflows, but won't have everything your project needs.

At InterNACHI, we use the SessionStart hook to automatically provision Claude VMs in a way that doesn't slow the process down too much…

The setup script

You'll need a script for Claude to run in your project. Here's the minimal shell:

 1#!/bin/bash
 2set -euo pipefail
 3 
 4# Only run in remote Claude Code environments
 5if [ "${CLAUDE_CODE_REMOTE:-}" != "true" ]; then
 6    exit 0
 7fi
 8 
 9# Run in the background so the session starts immediately
10echo '{"async": true, "asyncTimeout": 300000}'
11 
12# Ensure our 'sentinel' file is missing
13SENTINEL_FILE="/tmp/.claude-vm-setup-complete"
14rm -f "$SENTINEL_FILE"
15 
16# Do whatever your project needs to set up the VM
17# ...
18 
19# Signal that setup is done by touching the 'sentinel' file
20touch "$SENTINEL_FILE"

From here, install whatever your project needs. In our case, we set up composer and php extensions:

 1# Install Composer if missing
 2if ! command -v composer &> /dev/null; then
 3    EXPECTED_CHECKSUM="$(php -r 'copy("https://composer.github.io/installer.sig", "php://stdout");')"
 4    php -r "copy('https://getcomposer.org/installer', 'composer-setup.php');"
 5    ACTUAL_CHECKSUM="$(php -r "echo hash_file('sha384', 'composer-setup.php');")"
 6 
 7    if [ "$EXPECTED_CHECKSUM" != "$ACTUAL_CHECKSUM" ]; then
 8        echo 'ERROR: Invalid composer installer checksum' >&2
 9        rm composer-setup.php
10        exit 1
11    fi
12 
13    php composer-setup.php --quiet --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer
14    rm composer-setup.php
15fi
16 
17cd "$CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR"
18 
19# Install missing PHP extensions
20PHP_VERSION="$(php -r 'echo PHP_MAJOR_VERSION.".".PHP_MINOR_VERSION;')"
21MISSING_EXTS=()
22for ext in gmp; do
23    if ! php -m 2>/dev/null | grep -qi "^${ext}$"; then
24        MISSING_EXTS+=("php${PHP_VERSION}-${ext}")
25    fi
26done
27if [ ${#MISSING_EXTS[@]} -gt 0 ]; then
28    apt-get update -qq
29    apt-get install -y -qq "${MISSING_EXTS[@]}"
30fi

Then we set up our environment files for the VM:

1if [ ! -f .env ]; then
2    cp .env.example .env
3    sed -i 's/^CACHE_DRIVER=.*/CACHE_DRIVER=file/' .env
4    sed -i 's/^SESSION_DRIVER=.*/SESSION_DRIVER=file/' .env
5    sed -i 's/^QUEUE_CONNECTION=.*/QUEUE_CONNECTION=sync/' .env
6    php artisan key:generate --no-interaction
7fi

Then we install dependencies:

1composer install --no-interaction --no-progress
2yarn install --frozen-lockfile --non-interactive

Once your script is good to go, make it executable:

1chmod +x bin/setup-claude-vm.sh

And then register the hook in your project's .claude/settings.json file:

 1{
 2    "hooks": {
 3        "SessionStart": [
 4            {
 5                "matcher": "startup",
 6                "hooks": [
 7                    {
 8                        "type": "command",
 9                        "command": "\"$CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR\"/bin/setup-claude-vm.sh"
10                    }
11                ]
12            }
13        ]
14    }
15}

Commit this to your repo. $CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR is provided by Claude Code and points to your project root.

When to wait

Because the script runs asynchronously, there's a window where the session is active but dependencies aren't installed yet. You can tell Claude Code about this in your main CLAUDE.md file. Something like:

1## Remote VM Setup
2 
3The `SessionStart` hook (`bin/setup-claude-vm.sh`) runs asynchronously when a
4remote session starts. Before running tests, linters, or any command that depends
5on project dependencies, wait for setup to finish:
6 
7    if [ "$CLAUDE_CODE_REMOTE" = "true" ]; then
8        while [ ! -f /tmp/.claude-vm-setup-complete ]; do sleep 2; done
9    fi

It's not absolutely necessary, but can help Claude know when to wait for the setup to complete.

Have Claude do it for you…

If you want Claude to set this up for you, feel free to append .md to the end of this URL to get this article in agent-friendly markdown :)