Speed Up Your Drupal Workflow: Add Drush Buttons to PhpStorm with Lando

If you're building Drupal sites with Lando and PhpStorm, you've probably typed lando drush cr more times than you'd care to count. What if you could just... click a button?

In this guide, I’ll show you how to add one-click Drush commands directly to your PhpStorm toolbar. It’s surprisingly easy—and a massive time-saver.

What You’ll Need

• A Drupal site using Lando (Docker-based local dev)
• PhpStorm
• Drush installed in your project (/vendor/bin/drush)
• Lando working from terminal

Step 1: Confirm Drush Works with Lando

lando drush status

You should see something like this:

Drush version    : 13.x
Drupal root      : /app/web

Step 2: Find the Lando Executable

Get-Command lando

This will output something like:

C:\Users\YourName\.lando\bin\lando.cmd

Step 3: Add a Drush Button in PhpStorm

1. Go to File > Settings > Tools > External Tools
2. Click the ➕ to add a new tool
3. Use the following settings:

• Name: Drush: Cache Rebuild
• Program: C:\Users\YourName\.lando\bin\lando.cmd
• Arguments: drush cr
• Working Directory: C:\Path\To\Your\Project

Step 4: Add It to Your Toolbar

1. Go to Settings > Appearance & Behaviour > Menus and Toolbars
2. Expand Main Toolbar > Main Toolbar Left
3. Right-click → Add Action… → select Drush: Cache Rebuild
4. Click OK and Apply

You’ll now see a button at the top of PhpStorm! 

Bonus: Add More Drush Tools

Here are a few more to consider:

Why This Matters

Little tweaks like this can shave minutes off every hour. When you’re running a solo dev setup or juggling multiple sites, efficiency like this adds up fast.

You’ll spend less time typing the same things and more time building what matters.

Gotchas to Avoid

• If PhpStorm says it “can’t find lando”, make sure you use the full .cmd path.
• Restart PhpStorm after editing environment variables.
• Use $ProjectFileDir$ for dynamic working directory paths if templating.

Final Thoughts

This tiny tweak made my dev life better. Try it. Share it. And if you want a downloadable PhpStorm External Tools export file, drop me a message.

Tags: Drupal 11, PhpStorm, Lando, Drush, Workflow Tips