0010-laravel-api-resources-and-pagination

What problem does it solve?

This Skill helps you keep Laravel API responses stable and client-friendly by using API Resources with pagination and conditional fields, preventing ad-hoc response shapes and leaky transport logic.

Core Features & Use Cases

• Resource-based response shaping: Represent Eloquent models with dedicated Resource classes to separate transport concerns from domain logic.
• Pagination that preserves client expectations: Use Resource::collection with paginated queries so pagination links/cursors and metadata stay intact.
• Conditional, cache-friendly fields: Use when()/mergeWhen() and whenLoaded()/optional() patterns to include fields only when appropriate, avoiding inconsistent output contracts.

Quick Start

Update your controller to return a PostResource::collection wrapping a query that uses paginate(), and implement toArray() in your Resource to output a consistent set of fields with conditional author and published_at handling.