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

bash

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

Basic Resource

<code-snippet name="Basic Resource" lang="php"> <?php

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(), ]; } } </code-snippet>

Resource Collections

<code-snippet name="Resource Collection" lang="php"> <?php

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(), ], ]; } } </code-snippet>

Conditional Attributes

<code-snippet name="Conditional Attributes" lang="php"> public function toArray(Request $request): array { return [ 'id' => $this->id, 'name' => $this->name, 'email' => $this->email,

code

    // 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),
];

} </code-snippet>

Nested Resources

<code-snippet name="Nested Resources" lang="php"> public function toArray(Request $request): array { return [ 'id' => $this->id, 'title' => $this->title, 'author' => new UserResource($this->whenLoaded('author')), 'comments' => CommentResource::collection($this->whenLoaded('comments')), ]; } </code-snippet>

Using Resources in Controllers

<code-snippet name="API Controller" lang="php"> <?php

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);

code

    return new UserCollection($users);
}

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

    return new UserResource($user);
}

} </code-snippet>

API Routes

<code-snippet name="API Routes" lang="php"> // routes/api.php use App\Http\Controllers\Api\UserController;

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

API Versioning

<code-snippet name="API Versioning Structure" lang="text"> app/ ├── Http/ │ ├── Controllers/ │ │ └── Api/ │ │ ├── V1/ │ │ │ └── UserController.php │ │ └── V2/ │ │ └── UserController.php │ └── Resources/ │ ├── V1/ │ │ └── UserResource.php │ └── V2/ │ └── UserResource.php </code-snippet>

Response Wrapping

<code-snippet name="Custom Response Wrapper" lang="php"> // In AppServiceProvider boot() JsonResource::withoutWrapping();

// Or customize the wrapper public static $wrap = 'user'; </code-snippet>

Pagination

<code-snippet name="Paginated Response" lang="php"> public function index() { $users = User::paginate(15);

code

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

}

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

Additional Meta Data

<code-snippet name="Additional Meta" lang="php"> return (new UserCollection($users)) ->additional([ 'meta' => [ 'version' => 'v1', 'generated_at' => now()->toISOString(), ], ]); </code-snippet>

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