Solution:
I have looked at laravel_site/public/index.php
to see how it initiates the application and so far so good this seems to be a working solution:
require JPATH_ROOT.'/../laravel_site/bootstrap/autoload.php';
$app = require_once JPATH_ROOT.'/../laravel_site/bootstrap/app.php';
$kernel = $app->make('Illuminate\Contracts\Http\Kernel');
$response = $kernel->handle(
$request = Illuminate\Http\Request::capture()
);
//$response->send();
//$kernel->terminate($request, $response);
Facades now appear to be working fine. I’ve purposely left out $response->send();
and $kernel->terminate($request, $response);
so that the routing does not take place and override Joomla’s own routing.
I also no longer need to instantiate the Capsule
as Laravel is doing that for me now.
I haven’t tested this fully so I do not know how robust it is or what features will work but all is good so far.