Laravel API Response

A small, consistent, configurable JSON response layer for Laravel applications. It provides a predictable response envelope, validation errors, pagination metadata, and a facade without replacing Laravel's exception handling or resource system.

Requirements

• PHP 8.3+
• Laravel 12 or 13

Installation

composer require itmosoft/laravel-api-response

Laravel package discovery registers the service provider and facade alias automatically.

Publish the configuration if you want to customize defaults:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=api-response-config

Basic usage

use ItmoSoft\ApiResponse\Facades\ApiResponse;

return ApiResponse::success($user, 'User loaded.');

return ApiResponse::created($user);

return ApiResponse::error(
    message: 'User not found.',
    status: 404,
    code: 'USER_NOT_FOUND',
);

return ApiResponse::validation($validator->errors()->toArray());

return ApiResponse::noContent();

The facade can also be replaced with dependency injection:

use ItmoSoft\ApiResponse\ApiResponseManager;

public function show(int $id, ApiResponseManager $apiResponse)
{
    $user = User::findOrFail($id);

    return $apiResponse->success($user);
}

Response envelope

Successful response:

{
  "success": true,
  "message": "User loaded.",
  "data": { "id": 7, "name": "Adeel" },
  "errors": null,
  "meta": {}
}

Error response:

{
  "success": false,
  "message": "User not found.",
  "data": null,
  "errors": null,
  "meta": { "code": "USER_NOT_FOUND" }
}

The meta field is always an object in JSON, including when it is empty. Fields can be disabled individually in configuration.

Pagination

Pass a Laravel paginator instance:

$users = User::query()->paginate(15);

return ApiResponse::paginated($users, 'Users loaded.');

The response includes paginator items in data and pagination details in meta.pagination (current page, per-page size, item range, path, more-pages flag, and total/last page for length-aware pagination). Navigation URLs are included by default and can be disabled.

Methods

error() accepts only HTTP status codes from 400 through 599. Application error codes are placed in meta.code.

Configuration

config/api-response.php supports:

• Default messages for success, error, created, and validation responses.
• Enabling or disabling envelope fields (success, message, data, errors, meta).
• Enabling or disabling pagination navigation links.

Laravel resources and serialization

The data argument is passed to Laravel's JSON response factory. Arrays, Eloquent models, JsonSerializable values, and Laravel resources that implement Laravel's response/serialization contracts can be supplied. For paginated responses, the paginator's items() are placed in data; if you need resource transformation, transform the paginator collection before passing it in.

Exception handling

This package deliberately does not override Laravel's global exception handler. Use ApiResponse::error() or ApiResponse::validation() where you want the standardized envelope, or integrate those methods into your application's exception configuration. This avoids surprising changes to web routes and framework exception behavior.

Testing

composer install
composer test

The GitHub Actions matrix tests Laravel 12 with Testbench 10 and Laravel 13 with Testbench 11 on PHP 8.3.

First release and verification

See RELEASE.md for the complete first-release procedure, including local Laravel 12/13 test commands, Git commit and push commands, the annotated v1.0.0 tag, GitHub Actions verification, Packagist registration, and installation smoke tests in Laravel applications.

License

The MIT License. See LICENSE.