Laravel API Resources Development

When to Apply

Activate this skill when:

• Creating API endpoints and routes
• Building Eloquent API Resources
• Implementing resource collections
• Designing API response structures
• Working with API versioning

Documentation

Use search-docs for detailed Laravel API Resource patterns and documentation.

Basic Usage

Creating Resources

php artisan make:resource UserResource
php artisan make:resource UserCollection

Basic Resource

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, 'created_at' => $this->created_at->toISOString(), ]; } }

Resource Collections

namespace App\Http\Resources;

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

class UserCollection extends ResourceCollection { public function toArray(Request $request): array { return [ 'data' => $this->collection, 'meta' => [ 'total' => $this->collection->count(), ], ]; } }

Conditional Attributes

    // Include only when loaded
    'posts' => PostResource::collection($this->whenLoaded('posts')),

    // Include conditionally
    'secret' => $this->when($request->user()?->isAdmin(), $this->secret),

    // Include when not null
    'bio' => $this->whenNotNull($this->bio),
];

}

Nested Resources

Using Resources in Controllers

namespace App\Http\Controllers\Api;

use App\Http\Controllers\Controller; use App\Http\Resources\UserResource; use App\Http\Resources\UserCollection; use App\Models\User;

class UserController extends Controller { public function index() { $users = User::with('posts')->paginate(15);

    return new UserCollection($users);
}

public function show(User $user)
{
    $user->load('posts', 'profile');

    return new UserResource($user);
}

}

API Routes

Route::prefix('v1')->group(function () { Route::apiResource('users', UserController::class); });

API Versioning

Response Wrapping

// Or customize the wrapper public static $wrap = 'user';

Pagination

// Automatically includes pagination meta
return UserResource::collection($users);

}

// Response structure: // { // "data": [...], // "links": { "first": "...", "last": "...", ... }, // "meta": { "current_page": 1, "total": 100, ... } // }

Additional Meta Data

Common Pitfalls

• Not using whenLoaded() for relationships (causes N+1 or null errors)
• Exposing sensitive data in resources (passwords, tokens)
• Not eager loading relationships before passing to resources
• Missing API versioning from the start
• Not using pagination for large collections
• Inconsistent response structures across endpoints