0009-laravel-api-resource-patterns

What problem does it solve?

Laravel API Resources often become inconsistent, inefficient, and hard to maintain when relationships are loaded incorrectly, conditional fields are missing, and pagination/meta details are forgotten.

Core Features & Use Cases

• Consistent Resource Transformations: Map model attributes to API-friendly JSON with clear formatting for dates and primitives.
• Relationship-Safe Serialization: Use whenLoaded for single and nested relationships to prevent N+1 query problems and avoid unintended lazy loading.
• Conditional Attributes and Merged Fields: Use when, mergeWhen, and pivot helpers like whenPivotLoaded / whenPivotLoadedAs to include fields only when appropriate.
• Resource Collections with Pagination Meta & Links: Provide standardized collection responses including pagination metadata and HATEOAS-style links.
• Response Customization: Return resources with custom HTTP status codes and headers for better REST behavior.
• Context-Specific Resource Design: Keep resources focused by splitting list/detail variants rather than mixing responsibilities.

Quick Start

Apply the patterns in 0009-laravel-api-resource-patterns to update your JSON responses so relationships are only serialized when loaded, conditional fields behave correctly, and collection endpoints return pagination meta plus links.