Laravel PHPUnit in CI/CD: Every Route Returns 404 During Tests

Thanks for the suggestion.

I performed another experiment.

I created a brand-new Laravel 13.8 application and ran it through exactly the same GitLab CI pipeline (same Docker image, same PHP version, same PHPUnit configuration).

It passes 100% of the tests, so the CI environment itself appears to be working correctly.

Regarding route registration, I added the following test:

public function test_routes_exist(): void
{
    $routes = app('router')->getRoutes();

    $this->assertGreaterThan(0, count($routes));

    dd($routes);
}

The router contains all the expected routes during PHPUnit execution in CI. The output includes /login, /users, /organisms, etc.

So the routes are definitely being registered correctly.

What I don't understand is why a request such as:

$this->get('/login');

still returns 404 even though /login exists in the router at the exact same point in execution.

Since the routes are present, it seems the issue is no longer route registration itself, but rather why Laravel fails to match them when the test request is executed.

Are there any situations where the testing HTTP kernel could return 404 despite the routes being present? For example, host matching, route groups, URL generation, or something else that behaves differently under PHPUnit?

@leknoppix-708669 How about you just answer my question, instead of providing lots of things I didn’t ask about…?

Show your routes file and how you’re actually registering these routes.

Hi martinbean, thanks for your help and sorry for the detour.

Here is exactly how routes are registered in my project.

bootstrap/app.php

return Application::configure(basePath: dirname(__DIR__))
    ->withRouting(
        web: __DIR__.'/../routes/web.php',
        api: __DIR__.'/../routes/api.php',
        commands: __DIR__.'/../routes/console.php',
        health: '/up',
    )
    ->withMiddleware(function (Middleware $middleware): void {
        $middleware->alias([
            'admin' => EnsureUserIsAdminOrManager::class,
            'admin-only' => EnsureUserIsAdmin::class,
        ]);
    })
    ->withExceptions(function (Exceptions $exceptions): void {
        $exceptions->shouldRenderJsonWhen(
            fn (Request $request) => $request->is('api/*'),
        );
    })->create();

routes/web.php

Route::get('/', PageController::class)->name('public.page');
Route::post('/', PageController::class)->name('public.select');
Route::get('/open-tabs', OpenTabsController::class)->name('public.open-tabs');

Route::get('/dashboard', function () {
    return redirect('organisms');
})->middleware(['auth', 'admin'])->name('dashboard');

Route::middleware('auth')->group(function () {
    Route::get('/profile', [ProfileController::class, 'edit'])->name('profile.edit');
    Route::patch('/profile', [ProfileController::class, 'update'])->name('profile.update');
    Route::delete('/profile', [ProfileController::class, 'destroy'])->name('profile.destroy');
});

Route::middleware(['auth', 'admin'])->group(function () {
    Route::get('/statistics', [StatisticController::class, 'index'])->name('statistics.index');
    Route::post('organisms/{organism}/move-up', [OrganismController::class, 'moveUp'])->name('organisms.move-up');
    Route::post('organisms/{organism}/move-down', [OrganismController::class, 'moveDown'])->name('organisms.move-down');
    Route::resource('organisms', OrganismController::class)->only(['index', 'create', 'store', 'edit', 'update', 'destroy']);
});

Route::middleware(['auth', 'admin-only'])->group(function () {
    Route::resource('users', UserController::class)->only(['index', 'create', 'store', 'edit', 'update', 'destroy']);
});

require __DIR__.'/auth.php';

routes/auth.php

Route::middleware('guest')->group(function () {
    Route::get('login', [AuthenticatedSessionController::class, 'create'])->name('login');
    Route::post('login', [AuthenticatedSessionController::class, 'store']);
    Route::get('forgot-password', [PasswordResetLinkController::class, 'create'])->name('password.request');
    Route::post('forgot-password', [PasswordResetLinkController::class, 'store'])->name('password.email');
    Route::get('reset-password/{token}', [NewPasswordController::class, 'create'])->name('password.reset');
    Route::post('reset-password', [NewPasswordController::class, 'store'])->name('password.store');
});

Route::middleware('auth')->group(function () {
    Route::get('confirm-password', [ConfirmablePasswordController::class, 'show'])->name('password.confirm');
    Route::post('confirm-password', [ConfirmablePasswordController::class, 'store']);
    Route::put('password', [PasswordController::class, 'update'])->name('password.update');
    Route::post('logout', [AuthenticatedSessionController::class, 'destroy'])->name('logout');
});

If you spot anything suspicious here, I'd really appreciate the insight. Thanks!

Update

I finally got my tests passing in CI, but I'm still not 100% sure why the original approach failed. If anyone has a proper explanation, I'd love to hear it.

The workaround: Instead of running apt-get, docker-php-ext-install and composer install as inline CI steps (which consistently produced 404 on route-dependent tests), I baked everything into a Dockerfile.test and ran it via Docker-in-Docker in the CI pipeline.

Same steps, same image (PHP 8.3), but built as a Docker image first, then executed. And now 164/164 tests pass.

FROM php:8.3

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y \
    git curl zip unzip libsqlite3-dev libzip-dev libicu-dev \
    libonig-dev libxml2-dev libpng-dev libjpeg-dev libfreetype-dev \
    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

RUN docker-php-ext-install pdo_sqlite mbstring intl bcmath gd zip
RUN docker-php-ext-enable zip

RUN curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php -- --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer

WORKDIR /app
COPY . .

RUN composer install --no-interaction

# Avoid ViteManifestNotFoundException (not testing frontend)
RUN mkdir -p public/build && echo '{}' > public/build/manifest.json

RUN cp .env.testing .env \
    && php artisan key:generate --no-interaction \
    && mkdir -p bootstrap/cache storage/logs storage/framework/{cache/data,sessions,views} \
    && chmod -R 777 bootstrap/cache storage database \
    && php artisan optimize:clear \
    && php artisan migrate --no-interaction

CMD ["php", "artisan", "test", "--compact"]

And the CI job:

testsunitaire:
  stage: test
  image: docker:latest
  services:
    - docker:dind
  variables:
    DOCKER_HOST: tcp://docker:2375
    DOCKER_TLS_CERTDIR: ""
  script:
    - docker build -f Dockerfile.test -t app-test .
    - docker run --rm app-test

Before: ❌ 45/163 passing After: ✅ 164/164 passing

I'm still looking for a cleaner solution (using the Docker image directly without dind would be ideal). If anyone understands why the same commands in before_script vs in a Dockerfile produce different results, please share!