Laravel 5.8 brings a host of enhancements, focusing on streamlined development processes and improved functionality. Notable features include automatic policy resolution, which eliminates the need for manual registration of model authorization policies by adhering to standard naming conventions, and support for Carbon 2.0, enhancing date manipulation with immutable classes. The release also introduces the HasOneThrough eloquent relationship, allowing more direct querying of associated models, and enhances security with token guard token hashing by storing tokens as SHA-256 hashes. Additionally, caching is now set in seconds for more precise control, and scheduler timezone configuration is simplified by allowing a default timezone setting for all scheduled tasks. The Artisan::call and Artisan serve commands have been refined for improved usability, while mock testing helper methods offer cleaner test code. The introduction of a higher-order orWhere eloquent method simplifies query syntax by eliminating the need for closures, thus enhancing code readability.