Laravel Authored

Introduction

rulr/laravel-authored is a Laravel package that automatically assigns created_by and updated_by user IDs to Eloquent models. This helps track which user created and last updated a model, improving data auditing and accountability.

Installation

You can install the package via Composer:

composer require rulr/laravel-authored

Usage

1. Apply the HasAuthor Trait

To enable automatic tracking, add the HasAuthor trait to your Eloquent models:

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use Rulr\Authored\Traits\HasAuthor;

class Post extends Model
{
    use HasAuthor;
}

2. Use the authored Macro in Migrations

Instead of manually defining created_by and updated_by, you can use the provided macro when defining your schema:

Schema::create('posts', function (Blueprint $table) {
    $table->id();
    $table->string('title');
    $table->authored(); // Automatically adds created_by and updated_by fields
    $table->timestamps();
});

3. Configuration

By default, this package uses created_by and updated_by columns. You can customize these field names by publishing and modifying the config file.

Publishing the Config File

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Rulr\Authored\AuthoredServiceProvider" --tag=config

This will create a file at config/authored.php, where you can modify the column names:

return [
    'created_by' => 'created_by',
    'updated_by' => 'updated_by',
];

Now, when using $table->authored();, it will use the specified field names.

4. Automatically Set User IDs

When a user creates or updates a model, Laravel will automatically assign their ID:

$post = Post::create(['title' => 'First Post']);
$post->update(['title' => 'Updated Title']);

// Outputs the user ID who created the post
echo $post->created_by;

// Outputs the user ID who last updated the post
echo $post->updated_by;

Testing

This package includes PHPUnit tests using Orchestra Testbench. The tests create tables dynamically without requiring migrations. To run tests, use:

vendor/bin/phpunit

License

This package is open-source software licensed under the MIT license.