Health checks

The package lets requests through when something is wrong (ADR-0010), so a mistake in its setup can switch limits off without a sound. dynamic-throttle:health looks for those mistakes:

php artisan dynamic-throttle:health            # a line per check
php artisan dynamic-throttle:health --strict   # exits 1 on a warning too, for deploy scripts
php artisan dynamic-throttle:health --json

Each check is ok, warning, error or skipped, with what it found and what to do. The command exits 1 when a check errs, and with --strict when one warns too. It changes nothing.

Check	What it looks for
config	A config the counter driver cannot be built from, as status reports it. The kill switch off. A value the package replaces with its default, such as a sample_rate written as a string. An auto_attach group or a middleware.after entry that names nothing.
store	What the counter store guarantees. The file, apc and octane stores count per server, so limits multiply by your servers, and file and apc lose counts under load. The database store writes to your database on every limited request. array is for tests, and null counts nothing.
cache-clear	The Redis driver in the Redis database of a cache store, which php artisan cache:clear flushes, every limit with it.
redis-timeouts	A Redis connection requests use, for the counters or the manifest, without a timeout, or with one above a second, so a Redis that hangs holds requests that long or more. Without timeouts, phpredis waits PHP's default_socket_timeout, 60 seconds by default (timeouts).
app-key	No APP_KEY, so identities are hashed without a key.
apcu	PHP-FPM without APCu, so every request reads the rules from the cache first, and an outage costs every request a try. The command line cannot see the web server's PHP, so there it is skipped: the dashboard's Settings page runs the checks in the web server, and shows the answer.
dashboard	No viewDynamicThrottle or manageDynamicThrottle gate outside the local environment, so nobody can open the dashboard, and visitors get a 403 that says nothing about why (who gets in). A Gate::before callback alone does not count, as for the dashboard itself.
attached	dynamic.throttle on no route, and not global middleware, so no rule applies.
except	Horizon, Telescope, Pulse, Nova or Sanctum at a path except does not cover, so a rule can limit them.
two-limiters	Routes that run Laravel's throttle too, which writes the same headers.
middleware-order	Routes where authentication runs after dynamic.throttle, so user rules count your users as guests.
manifest	No manifest in the cache, so no rule applies. One that the scheduled compile has not rewritten for 10 minutes. More than 500 rules or 1,000 exemptions, which every load of it pays for.
emergency	Bypass or a scale factor that servers apply with no end time, or with one more than 24 hours away: an emergency change left on. One that ends within 24 hours is ok, so a deploy during an incident passes --strict.
metrics	Metrics not flushed for more than 10 minutes: the scheduler is not running.
guests	A user rule that saw mostly guests in the last hour, half or more of at least 100 requests recorded: authentication the route check cannot see, or a rule on public routes.
dominant-ip	One client IP behind half or more of at least 1,000 requests recorded over the current and the previous hour: usually a load balancer's, because the trusted proxies are not set. Redis and Valkey only.
ignored	Rules ignored in the last hour because more than matching.max_rules_per_request rules of their mode matched a request.

The dashboard's Settings page runs the same checks inside the web server, so its apcu line describes the PHP that serves your requests.

The last three read telemetry, and are skipped while it is off. For them, the middleware also records per rule and minute the guests a user rule counted, the requests a rule skipped for want of an identity, and those it was ignored for. On Redis and Valkey, it also counts each hour's requests per client, by the hash an ip rule gives the client, in the same script call. None of these reach the hourly table.