Arie Visser • April 19, 2020

Laravel 7 came with a new feature, stub customization. Stub customization gives the ability to modify the stub files that are used when creating classes such as controllers and tests with the artisan make command. In this guide I will try to give an overview of the stubs that can be customized, and describe two use cases.

Let's see what happens when we execute the command to enable customization:

php artisan stub:publish

You will see the "Stubs published successfully." message, and a new folder stubs becomes visible in the root of your project, containing files that are customizable.

The following list shows all the stubs, with the accompanying command:

controller.api.stub php artisan make:controller {ControllerName} --api controller.invokable.stub php artisan make:controller {ControllerName} --invokable controller.model.api.stub php artisan make:controller {ControllerName} --model={ModelName} --api controller.model.stub php artisan make:controller {ControllerName} --model={ModelName} controller.nested.api.stub php artisan make:controller {ControllerName} --parent={ParentModelName} --model={ModelName} --api controller.nested.stub php artisan make:controller {ControllerName} --parent={ParentModelName} --model={ModelName} controller.plain.stub php artisan make:controller {ControllerName} controller.stub php artisan make:controller {ControllerName} --resource job.queued.stub php artisan make:job {JobName} job.stub php artisan make:job {JobName} --sync migration.create.stub php artisan make:migration {migration_name} --create={table_name} migration.stub php artisan make:migration {migration_name} migration.update.stub php artisan make:migration {migration_name} --table={table_name} model.pivot.stub php artisan make:model {ModelName} --pivot model.stub php artisan make:model {ModelName} test.stub php artisan make:test {TestName} test.unit.stub php artisan make:test {TestName} --unit

All these stubs contain the basic content that is used to generate the files that are created with the artisan make command. After publishing these stubs, you have the ability to edit their content.

For this guide, we will add type hinting to API controllers by default, and a default property to models.

Add type hinting to API controllers

Type hinting (in combination with clear function names and git blame) can render doc blocks obsolete in many cases.

We can apply this code style to our controllers, by adding return type declarations and function argument types to each method in stubs/controller.api.stub .

After adding use Illuminate\Http\Response; , the int type hint to the occurences of $id , and Response as return type, the file will look like this:

<?php namespace {{ namespace }}; use {{ rootNamespace }}Http\Controllers\Controller; use Illuminate\Http\Request; use Illuminate\Http\Response; class {{ class }} extends Controller { public function index(): Response { // } public function store(Request $request): Response { // } public function show(int $id): Response { // } public function update(Request $request, int $id): Response { // } public function destroy(int $id): Response { // } }

Now, after we run:

php artisan make:controller API/OrderController --api

we will see the result of our customized controller in app/Http/Controllers/API/OrderController.php , containing the type hints.

Add a default property to models

In most models I create, I like to define the attributes that are mass assignable, by adding the $fillable property to the model.

Let's add this by default by customizing model.stub :

<?php namespace {{ namespace }}; use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model; class {{ class }} extends Model { /** * The attributes that are mass assignable. * * @var array */ protected $fillable = [ // ]; }

When we create a model, by running:

php artisan make:model Order

the model Order will contain the $fillable property.

That's it. I hope this guide was helpful. You can find the code of these examples in this repository.