Note: This feature is currently supports MySql/MariaDB & Postgres only. Support for SQLite and SQLServer may be added in the future. If this is something you'd like to see implemented, consider sponsoring and/or opening a corresponding issue.
PhpStorm includes a suite of database management tools. Each database connection is called a data source, which can be used to provide autocompletion for SQL code and inspecting the schema or rows of your database tables.
As we already have to configure our database connections in Laravel using the .env and config/database.php files, Laravel Make can automatically create and manage a data source based on the currently configured database. More specifically, this will be the one that is used by the DB facade and your Eloquent models by default.
When you open the config/database.php and installed the extension, you will see a banner at the top of the file:
This signals, that Laravel Make correctly identified the Laravel application in your project. If you click Add, or alternatively manually trigger the Autoconfigure Default Database Connection action, a progress bar will open, and Laravel Make will read your current database configuration as it would be returned by executing config('datbase') when using Laravel Tinker. This might take a few seconds, if you are using Docker, but otherwise should be pretty quick.
After this is completed, the Database tool window opens from the right and now includes a new Laravel entry, which is connected to your database. It might be necessary to download additional JDBC driver files, so PhpStorm is able to connect to the database, but the IDE will guide you through the process, which only takes a few clicks and only needs to be done once.
If the connection was successful and all driver files are present, you can explore the contents of your database as seen on the screenshot below:
As you may have noticed, the banner at the top still remains. It now can be used to update the managed data source, when the database configuration changes. If you don't like the banner, you can always hide it by clicking on Don't ask again or unchecking the corresponding checkbox in the plugin settings.
Right now the schema of a data source does not update automatically, so you may need to refresh the database tables from time to time (e.g. after running php artisan migrate). You can learn more about the specific features of the Database tool window from the official PhpStorm Database & SQL documentation.