Laravel Best Practices

Convention and style best practices

Follow project naming conventions

Prefer Laravel's conventions in new code, but preserve an established project convention unless a coordinated rename is worthwhile.

Prefer clear, idiomatic syntax

Use Laravel helpers and query methods when they communicate intent more directly. Do not shorten code when the result is ambiguous or loses useful type information.

Use typed request accessors such as $request->string(), $request->integer(), and $request->boolean() when their coercion matches the operation.

Use utilities when they clarify intent

Laravel's Str, Arr, Number, and Uri utilities provide expressive operations and framework-consistent behavior. Prefer them when they are clearer or safer than an equivalent PHP operation, not as a replacement for every built-in function.

$slug = Str::slug($title);
$short = Str::limit($text, 100);
$class = class_basename(User::class);
$result = Str::of($input)->trim()->replace('_', '-')->lower();

Use Arr for dot notation and common transformations:

$name = Arr::get($array, 'user.name', 'default');
$public = Arr::only($attributes, ['name', 'email']);

Use Number for localized display formatting, not for values you store or calculate:

Number::format(1000000);
Number::currency(1500, 'USD');
Number::fileSize(1024 * 1024);

Use Uri when a structured API helps you build or transform a uniform resource identifier (URI):

$uri = Uri::of('https://example.com/search')
    ->withQuery(['q' => 'laravel', 'page' => 1]);

Before using newer utility classes or methods, check the documentation for the project's Laravel version.

Keep presentation code maintainable

Prefer the project's asset pipeline, components, and existing conventions for substantial JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Small page-specific scripts or styles can be reasonable in Blade layouts or stacks. Avoid mixing large behavior and style blocks into templates.

Pass server data with an encoding that fits its context. For example, Blade's Js::from() safely formats data for JavaScript:

<script>
    const article = {{ Js::from($article) }};
</script>

Data attributes are useful for small scalar values, but serializing a large model into an attribute can expose unnecessary fields and complicate escaping.

Write comments that explain why

Prefer clear names and small units of code over comments that restate an operation. Add concise comments for non-obvious constraints, tradeoffs, workarounds, regular expressions, or external behavior that the code cannot express by itself. Keep comments accurate when behavior changes.

Unhelpful:

// Check whether the query has joins.
if (count((array) $builder->getQuery()->joins) > 0) {
    // ...
}

Clearer:

if ($this->hasJoins()) {
    // ...
}