When cloning a Laravel app from Git repository to run on the server or local machine for the first time, it is necessary to run the following commands:

git clone <git repo> 
cd <repo> 

Install dependencies and change permission for storage directory

composer install 
sudo chgrp -R www-data storage bootstrap/cache 
sudo chmod -R ug+rwx storage bootstrap/cache 

Then rename or copy .env.example to .env and generate a new key

cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate 

Migrate the database after all necessary config information has been updated in the .env file:

php artisan migrate