When to generate a new Application Key in Laravel?

php artisan key:generate is a command that sets the APP_KEY value in your .env file. By default, this command is run following a composer create-project laravel/laravel command. If you use a version control system like git to manage your project for development, calling git push ... will push a copy of your Laravel project to wherever it is going, but will not include your .env file. Therefore, if someone clones your project using git clone ... they will have to manually enter php artisan key:generate for their app to function correctly.

So, TL:DR the only time you need to call php artisan key:generate is following a clone of a pre-created Laravel project.

Side note: If you try to run a Laravel project with your APP_KEY set to SomeRandomString (which is the default in your .env.example file, you will actually get an error:

No supported encrypter found. The cipher and / or key length are invalid.

The most important thing to do when cloning a laravel project is to first run composer update then composer install. The composer install command installs any required dependencies for that laravel app.

The steps I took to clone a laravel project required the php artisan key:generate command. I can see in my .env file that there is an updated APP_KEY=base64:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx after running this command.