laravel-controller-cleanup

To reduce Laravel controller bloat, move validation and authorization into Form Requests and extract business logic into Actions with DTOs. This shifts orchestration out of controllers and into dedicated, testable classes.

The best way to structure Laravel controllers is to prefer resource or invokable controllers for standard CRUD endpoints, wiring small Actions or Services with DTOs into the controller methods to decouple business logic from the framework.

Yes, you can use Form Requests to centralize authorization and validation in Laravel. Moving these concerns into Form Requests keeps controllers lean and standardizes validation logic across standard CRUD endpoints.

Refactor an existing Laravel controller by creating a Form Request for validation, extracting the method's logic into a small Action with a DTO, and then wiring that Action into the original controller method.

Extracting Laravel business logic to Actions and Services with DTOs improves testability by decoupling logic from the framework. This allows you to write dedicated tests for both controllers and the extracted Actions.

Use invokable controllers in Laravel for isolated single-action endpoints, and use resource controllers for standard CRUD operations. Both approaches help standardize structure and reduce controller bloat.