Herd stuck at "starting" in Junie settings.

[justinrclarke]

Laravel Package Version

1.22.0

Laravel Version

12.22.1

PHP Version

8.4

Database Driver & Version

No response

Description

When I went to enable all the new Laravel Boost features/connections for Junie in PHPStorm, the status for Herd is stuck at "starting". This doesn't resolve itself. I have closed PHPStorm and reopened it to try to fix it, and nothing helps. I have even tried to remove the settings myself to restart the whole process, and it is still consistent.

PHPStorm Version:
PhpStorm 2025.2
Build #PS-252.23892.419, built on August 1, 2025

Steps To Reproduce

Update Herd via application prompt.

Open PHPStorm

Go to Settings -> Tools -> Junie -> MCP Settings

Enable laravel-boost

Enable herd

[dinoluck]

Same issue here, I have Laravel Herd, so to even get it to start "starting" had to point command directly to .exe inside Herd/bin/php. Now, stuck at starting.

[ashleyhindle]

What does your .junie/mcp/mcp.json file look like now @dinoluck ?

We should be able to programmatically do that

[hebbet]

hi,
i have the same issue with herd 1.22.0 using laravel 12.24.

here is my file:
i set command manually to the php83.bat file as per comment here. #74 (comment)

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "herd": {
            "command": "C:\\Users\\<username>\\.config\\herd\\bin\\php83.bat",
            "args": [
                "C:/Users/<username>/.config/herd/bin/herd-mcp.phar"
            ],
            "env": {
                "SITE_PATH": "C:\\Users\\<username>\\Herd\\<project>"
            }
        }
    }
}

[mpociot]

I'm looking into this, seems like the latest Junie updates don't like our MCP protocol version anymore.

[dinoluck]

What does your .junie/mcp/mcp.json file look like now @dinoluck ?

We should be able to programmatically do that

The out of the box file just has "php" as the command, and the path to herd-mcp is absolute path but not escaped (C:/not/escaped vs C:\is\escaped) -- both of those had to be fixed in order to get to "stuck at starting." Interestingly boost install adds the SITE_PATH as well, and properly escapes that absolute path.