API Resources & Responses

API Resources

// Generate: php artisan make:resource UserResource

namespace App\Http\Resources;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Http\Resources\Json\JsonResource;

class UserResource extends JsonResource
{
    public function toArray(Request $request): array
    {
        return [
            "id" => $this->id,
            "name" => $this->name,
            "email" => $this->email,
            "is_admin" => $this->is_admin,
            "posts_count" => $this->whenCounted("posts"),
            "created_at" => $this->created_at,
            "updated_at" => $this->updated_at,
        ];
    }
}

Resource Collections

namespace App\Http\Resources;

use Illuminate\Http\Resources\Json\ResourceCollection;

class UserCollection extends ResourceCollection
{
    public $collects = UserResource::class;

    public function toArray(Request $request): array
    {
        return [
            "data" => $this->collection,
            "meta" => [
                "total" => $this->total(),
                "per_page" => $this->perPage(),
                "current_page" => $this->currentPage(),
            ],
        ];
    }
}

Conditional Attributes

public function toArray(Request $request): array
{
    return [
        "id" => $this->id,
        "name" => $this->name,
        "email" => $this->when($request->user()?->is_admin, $this->email),
        "relationship" => $this->whenLoaded("profile"),
    ];
}

Laravel 13: #[UseResource] Attribute

Laravel 13 introduces the #[UseResource] attribute on models, binding them directly to their API Resource class for automatic serialization.