Laravel Horizon

What is Laravel Horizon?

Laravel Horizon is Laravel's official dashboard and configuration layer for Redis-backed queues, it doesn't replace the queue worker process, it supervises and reports on it. This container isn't a standalone daemon in the usual sense: it's a dedicated PHP/Alpine image (built via supervisord, extending Laradock's usual PHP extension-install pattern) whose job is to run php artisan horizon against your mounted Laravel application, under depends_on: workspace.

Start Laravel Horizon

Your app must already have Horizon installed (composer require laravel/horizon) and configured to use the redis queue connection. Then:

docker compose up -d laravel-horizon

The container depends_on workspace in compose.yml, so Compose starts it first automatically.

Stop Laravel Horizon

docker compose stop laravel-horizon

This stops the container, which stops the supervised horizon process along with it. To remove the container: docker compose rm -f laravel-horizon.

Configuration

Laravel Horizon's own dashboard and queue settings live in your Laravel app (config/horizon.php), not in this container. What this container's laravel-horizon/defaults.env controls is which optional PHP extensions get compiled into its image at build time, all false by default:

Variable	Default	What it does
LARAVEL_HORIZON_INSTALL_BZ2	false	Install the bz2 extension.
LARAVEL_HORIZON_INSTALL_GD	false	Install the gd extension.
LARAVEL_HORIZON_INSTALL_GMP	false	Install the gmp extension.
LARAVEL_HORIZON_INSTALL_GNUPG	false	Install the gnupg extension.
LARAVEL_HORIZON_INSTALL_LDAP	false	Install the ldap extension.
LARAVEL_HORIZON_INSTALL_IMAGEMAGICK	false	Install imagick, version controlled by LARAVEL_HORIZON_IMAGEMAGICK_VERSION.
LARAVEL_HORIZON_INSTALL_INTL	false	Install the intl extension.
LARAVEL_HORIZON_IMAGEMAGICK_VERSION	latest	Git ref of the imagick PECL/source build, used only when ImageMagick is installed.
LARAVEL_HORIZON_INSTALL_SOCKETS	false	Install the sockets extension.
LARAVEL_HORIZON_INSTALL_YAML	false	Install the yaml extension.
LARAVEL_HORIZON_INSTALL_ZIP_ARCHIVE	false	Install the zip extension.
LARAVEL_HORIZON_INSTALL_PHPREDIS	false	Install the redis PECL extension (in addition to predis, if your app uses it).
LARAVEL_HORIZON_INSTALL_MONGO	false	Install the mongodb extension.
LARAVEL_HORIZON_INSTALL_CASSANDRA	false	Install the Cassandra PHP driver.
LARAVEL_HORIZON_INSTALL_FFMPEG	false	Install the ffmpeg binary for jobs that process media.
LARAVEL_HORIZON_INSTALL_AUDIOWAVEFORM	false	Install the BBC audiowaveform binary.
LARAVEL_HORIZON_INSTALL_POPPLER_UTILS	false	Install poppler-utils and antiword for PDF/document jobs.
LARAVEL_HORIZON_PUID	1000	UID for the container's laradock user.
LARAVEL_HORIZON_PGID	1000	GID for the container's laradock user.

This container also inherits PHP_FPM_INSTALL_PGSQL, PHP_FPM_INSTALL_BCMATH, and PHP_FPM_INSTALL_MEMCACHED from the shared PHP-FPM build args, so those extensions follow whatever you've already set for php-fpm.

Supervise queue workers

The actual worker process(es) Horizon supervises are configured on the Laravel side, in config/horizon.php (queues, balance strategy, max processes, and so on), same as any Horizon setup. This container just needs Redis and your app code reachable to run php artisan horizon:

docker compose up -d redis workspace laravel-horizon

Supervisord config for the container itself lives in laravel-horizon/supervisord.d, mounted into /etc/supervisord.d, edit it if you need to change how the horizon process is launched or restarted inside the container.

Common issues

• Horizon container starts but no jobs process. Confirm your Laravel app's QUEUE_CONNECTION=redis and that redis is running and reachable; Horizon only supervises Redis-backed queues.
• Missing PHP extension errors from your app's jobs. The extension flags above are all false by default; if a job needs gd, imagick, mongodb, and so on, set the matching LARAVEL_HORIZON_INSTALL_* variable and rebuild: docker compose build laravel-horizon.
• Extension build args changed but the container still lacks them. These are Dockerfile build args, not runtime env vars; a plain restart won't apply them, rebuild the image after changing .env.
• Horizon dashboard (/horizon) shows no metrics. That dashboard is served by your app itself (through php-fpm/nginx), not by this container; this container only needs to be running so the underlying queue actually gets worked.

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Need the queue backend itself? See Redis. New to Laradock? Start at Getting Started.