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Nova Action Event Columns

Add extra columns to Laravel Nova's action_events table and fill them automatically on every action. The client IP address (ip_address) ships as a built-in column; your app can register additional columns — tenant_id, user_agent, anything — without forking, through a small resolver registry.

Nova writes action_events through two internal paths (event-firing ->save() and event-bypassing mass ::insert()), and only fires Eloquent events on one of them. This package hooks both, so your columns are populated no matter how the event is created: create, update, attach, delete, force-delete, restore, and every custom Nova action. Works on Nova 4 and Nova 5.

Screenshots

Split diagonally: light theme (top-left) / dark theme (bottom-right).

The auto-registered "Action Events" resource, with the built-in ip_address column filled on every event:

An event's detail page shows every column as a field — including the built-in IP:

Features

• 🌐 Built-in ip_address column captured from request()->ip(), toggleable via config
• 🧩 Column registry — register your own columns with a value resolver and an optional Nova field
• 🔁 Every write path covered — a creating hook for ->save() paths and an insert() override for the mass-insert paths
• 🖥️ Custom ActionResource that surfaces your columns in Nova (your field, or a read-only default)
• 🧹 action-events:prune command for retention (--days / --hours / --all)
• 📦 Publishable migration, custom-column migration stub, and config
• 🧪 100% line coverage, PHPStan level 8, no final classes, strict types everywhere

Requirements

• PHP ^8.2
• Laravel Nova ^4.0 || ^5.0
• Laravel ^11.0 || ^12.0 || ^13.0

Both Nova majors are exercised in CI. Note that Nova 4 (through its inertiajs/inertia-laravel dependency) tops out at PHP 8.4 and Laravel 11; on PHP 8.5 or Laravel 12+, use Nova 5. Composer resolves the right combination for you.

Installation

Because Nova is a paid, private package, make sure your application is already authenticated against nova.laravel.com, then:

The service provider auto-registers via Laravel package discovery. The ip_address migration runs automatically. Publish the config, migration or custom-column stub if you want to tweak them:

Activation

Nova only records into a custom action_events model when you point its action resource at this package. In config/nova.php:

Then run php artisan migrate. Until this is set, Nova uses its own action resource and your extra columns stay null.

Usage

The built-in IP column

Once activated and migrated, every action event stores the request IP in ip_address — nothing else to do. Toggle it in config/nova-action-event-columns.php (env NOVA_ACTION_EVENT_COLUMNS_IP_ENABLED).

Registering custom columns

Register columns from a service provider's boot() — in code, never in config, because closures cannot be serialized by config:cache. Each column gets a resolver (the value to store) and an optional field factory (how it shows in Nova):

• The resolver receives the current Illuminate\Http\Request (or null outside an HTTP context — return null and leave the column nullable).
• When you omit the field factory, the column is shown read-only via Text::make(Str::headline($column), $column).
• Existing values are never overwritten — resolvers only fill columns that are still null.

You must provision the database column yourself; publish the stub (--tag=nova-action-event-columns-stub), rename it, set the column name/type, and migrate.

Viewing the events in Nova

The package's Nova\ActionResource extends Nova's own and adds a field for each registered column — your registered field if you supplied one, otherwise the read-only default. The built-in ip_address ships as an "IP" field.

It is auto-registered as a navigable resource, so an "Action Events" entry appears in the Nova sidebar and you can browse every event with its columns — no Nova::resources() wiring required. Events also appear on a record's detail page (Nova's built-in action-event feed). To opt out of the navigation entry — to register your own resource, or to keep Nova's default where events show only on detail pages — set register_resource to false (env NOVA_ACTION_EVENT_COLUMNS_REGISTER_RESOURCE).

The action-events:prune command

Retention for the action_events table:

A window (--days / --hours) or --all is required — with neither, the command refuses. It is never auto-scheduled; wire it up yourself if you want it periodic:

TrustProxies caveat

request()->ip() reflects the real client only if your app trusts its proxies. Behind a load balancer, configure trusted proxies so the forwarded header is honoured:

If you trust proxies as *, the forwarded IP is client-spoofable — treat ip_address as a best-effort audit signal, not hard proof.

Testing

A full embedded Nova app (via Orchestra Workbench) lets you exercise the flow in a real Nova instance:

Security

The built-in ip_address is captured on a best-effort basis and is only trustworthy when proxies are configured correctly (see the TrustProxies caveat). If you discover a security issue, please email [email protected] instead of using the issue tracker.

Changelog

Please see CHANGELOG for what has changed recently.

Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING for details.

Credits

• Big Boss Studio

License

The MIT License (MIT). Please see License File for more information.