In this day and age, it's quite normal for a developer to have an understanding of consoles, and how to issue basic commands. But what if you could code your own custom commands to improve your workflow? If we look back to Laravel 3, you might remember that it offered tasks. Tasks were extremely helpful, but still came up short for more complex operations. Thankfully, Laravel 4 packs a beefed up Artisan that will make your life as a developer so much easier!

They start by introducing you to Artisan and what it can do already, then move into how you can create you own custom commands (with code examples). They show you how to add a description, coloring for the output, work with arguments, use confirm/question prompts and working with dependencies you might need.