artisan tinker is a REPL with the application booted

Checking what a relation actually returns usually means writing a throwaway route, hitting it, and deleting it — or adding a dd() somewhere and reloading. Both are slower than asking directly.

php artisan tinker

>>> Order::with('items')->find(91)->items->pluck('sku')
>>> app(Catalogue::class)          // resolve out of the container
>>> DB::listen(function ($q) { dump($q->sql); });   // watch the queries

The full application is booted, so the container, the database connection and every binding are the real ones — which is the reason it is useful and the reason to be careful about which environment it is pointed at. DB::listen() inside a session is the fastest way to see what a chain of scopes actually compiles to.