Before you start

• Read Requirements, Tech Stack, and Preparing.
• Hosting standard: Contabo VPS (app + DB) — see Hosting. Media: Contabo Object Storage via Admin Features or MINIO_* (Object Storage).
• Admin Features / Settings control optional platform features for this deployment.
• PHP 8.1+ (8.2 recommended), Composer, MySQL 8 / MariaDB, Node/npm for asset builds when needed.

1. Place the application

1. Production (Contabo): Deploy the app under e.g. /var/www/aiacademy.aiee.dev. Point Nginx/Apache document root at …/public.
2. Local (XAMPP): Copy the app to C:\xampp\htdocs\aiacademy.aiee.dev (or your chosen alias) with the same public/ document root rule.
3. Ensure storage/ and bootstrap/cache/ are writable by the web / PHP-FPM user.

Legacy cPanel public_html screenshots (install_*.jpg) below are historical only — do not follow them for SQL import or soq_lms naming.

2. Create the database

1. Create an empty MySQL database and user (example production DB name: aiacademy — use your client naming; avoid legacy soq_lms).
2. Grant the user full rights on that database only.
3. Copy .env.example to .env (if needed) and set at least:

   APP_URL=https://your-domain.example
   DB_DATABASE=aiacademy
   DB_USERNAME=…
   DB_PASSWORD=…

4. Run php artisan key:generate if APP_KEY is empty.

3. Install dependencies and schema

From the Laravel app root (the folder that contains artisan):

composer install
php artisan migrate
php artisan db:seed

• composer install + migrate/seed is the baseline. Demo packs are not part of Composer install.
• Optional beauty pitch data (handover / staging):

php artisan demo:seed beauty
php artisan demo:status

Beauty only — do not seed a Property (or other vertical) pack into this install. Details: Beauty Demo Pack, Desktop docs/engineering/product/demo-seed.md, app demo/README.md.

4. Post-install checks

1. Open the site URL and Admin at /admin (or your configured admin path). Demo admin after beauty seed: admin@soq.edu.sg / Demo@1234 — see Demo Accounts.
2. Configure SMTP (SMTP) before relying on password reset or purchase mail.
3. Wire Contabo Object Storage (MINIO_* or Admin Features) for production media.
4. Keep DEMO_ONE_CLICK_LOGIN=false (or unset) on customer production.

Help

Installation support: soq.edu.sg. For operator updates after go-live, see How to Update (deploy + migrate flow).