`lang:publish` Command Publishes Files to `./lang`, But Laravel Only Loads Translations from `resources/lang`

[cirlmcesc]

🐛 Bug Report

• Laravel Version: 12.x (e.g., 12.0.3)
• PHP Version: 8.3
• Database Driver & Version: N/A
• Description:

The php artisan lang:publish command publishes language files to the project root directory (./lang), but Laravel does not load translations from this directory at all. Instead, it only reads from resources/lang, even in a fresh Laravel 12 application.

This makes the lang:publish command misleading and effectively broken, because:

• The published files in ./lang have no effect on translation output.

• Developers assume ./lang is the new standard (per Laravel 9+ docs), but it’s ignored silently.

• There is no error, warning, or documentation explaining that ./lang is not being used.

• Steps To Reproduce:

# 1. Create a brand new Laravel 12 project
laravel new test-lang-issue
cd test-lang-issue

# 2. Publish language files (creates ./lang)
php artisan lang:publish

# Confirm files exist in root
ls ./lang/en/auth.php        # ✅ exists

# Ensure resources/lang does NOT exist
ls resources/lang            # ❌ No such file or directory

# 3. Test translation in Tinker
php artisan tinker
>>> __('auth.failed')

Expected: Returns the string from ./lang/en/auth.php (e.g., "These credentials do not match our records.")
Actual: Throws an error or returns the key itself ("auth.failed"), indicating no translation was found.

💡 In many cases, it falls back to the key because resources/lang doesn’t exist and ./lang is not loaded.

Now, manually move the folder:

mv lang resources/
php artisan tinker
>>> __('auth.failed')  // ✅ Now it works!

This proves Laravel only reads from resources/lang, completely ignoring ./lang.

• Expected Behavior:

Since Laravel 9+ announced that the language directory has moved to the project root (./lang), the framework should:

• Load translations from ./lang by default, OR

• The lang:publish command should publish to resources/lang if that’s still the active path.

• Actual Behavior:

• lang:publish writes to ./lang

• But translation loader ignores ./lang entirely

• Only resources/lang is respected

• No indication of why translations are missing

• Additional Context:

This suggests that either:

1. The Application::useLangPath() logic is not applied by default in Laravel 12, or
2. The service provider that sets the lang path is not registering correctly in new apps.

The Laravel 12 Localization documentation states:

“Laravel’s default language files are now published to the lang directory in your application’s root.”

But in practice, this is not true — the files are published there, but not loaded from there.

---

✅ Suggested Fix

1. Fix the default lang path so Laravel actually loads from ./lang in new applications.
2. OR, revert lang:publish to publish to resources/lang if that’s still the effective path.
3. Update documentation to reflect actual behavior.
4. Add a runtime check:

   if (is_dir(base_path('lang')) && !is_dir(resource_path('lang'))) {
       app()->useLangPath(base_path('lang'));
   }

[crynobone]

Hey there, thanks for reporting this issue.

We'll need more info and/or code to debug this further. Can you please create a repository with the command below, commit the code that reproduces the issue as one separate commit on the main/master branch and share the repository here?

Please make sure that you have the latest version of the Laravel installer in order to run this command. Please also make sure you have both Git & the GitHub CLI tool properly set up.

laravel new bug-report --github="--public"

Do not amend and create a separate commit with your custom changes. After you've posted the repository, we'll try to reproduce the issue.

Thanks!

[crynobone]

The issue would only occur if the existing application contains resources/lang or a 3rd party packages publish to resources/lang instead of checking for lang folder.

[cirlmcesc]

Hi @crynobone, thanks for the clarification — you're absolutely right about the root cause.

However, this issue can also affect brand new Laravel 12 applications, not just upgraded ones. For example:

• Some popular packages (e.g. laravel/breeze, laravel/ui, or third-party admin panels) automatically publish their translation files to resources/lang during installation.
• As a result, even a fresh laravel new myapp + php artisan breeze:install will end up with resources/lang present.
• Then, when the developer runs php artisan lang:publish (as encouraged by the docs), the official Laravel translations go into ./lang — but are silently ignored because resources/lang already exists.

This creates a confusing situation where:

• The framework ships a command that publishes to ./lang
• The docs present ./lang as the "new default"
• But runtime behavior depends on whether any package happened to create resources/lang first

Suggested improvement

Could we add a small note in the lang:publish command output? For example:

Published language files to ./lang.
> Note: Translations will only load from this directory if resources/lang does not exist.
> To force using ./lang, add to bootstrap/app.php:
>     app()->useLangPath(base_path('lang'));

This would help developers understand why their translations aren’t loading — without breaking backward compatibility.

[crynobone]

both Breeze and UI has been deprecated. New project should always use new starter kit.

[cirlmcesc]

Oh, I only mentioned Breeze as an example 😅
In practice, many projects (including our own frontend setups) often put frontend translation files in resources/lang.
But when we try to use Laravel’s localization and run php artisan lang:publish, the official translations get published to ./lang — and then silently ignored by the framework, because as long as resources/lang exists, Laravel won’t even look at ./lang.
So everything looks fine—the command runs, the files are there—but translations just don’t work, with no warning or error. It’s a pretty easy trap to fall into!

[crynobone]

resources/lang are old format. Use lang and follow the current format