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Laravel Api Response

A small, framework-friendly trait that standardizes JSON API responses (success and error). The trait is lightweight and designed to be easy to override in consuming applications.

Features

• Standardized JSON success and error responses
• Small and framework-agnostic: prefers framework response helpers when available
• Extensible: override payload shape or header handling

Requirements

• PHP >= 8.1
• ext-json

Installation

Install via Composer:

Quick usage (Laravel)

Overriding payload structure

If you want a different JSON structure (for example to include meta or to follow a specification), override formatSuccessPayload or formatErrorPayload in your class. Below is a fuller example showing a custom success payload and preserving type hints.

This keeps the trait's public API (successResponse) the same while changing only the response shape.

Overriding headers

If you need to inject or normalize headers (for example, pagination headers), override prepareHeaders. The example below calls the parent to keep the default Content-Type normalization and then adds pagination headers.

Note: prepareHeaders normalizes header values and ensures Content-Type: application/json if not provided.

Macros

You can register custom response helpers at runtime via macro(). Macros are scoped to the class that uses the trait and are invoked with $this bound to the instance (or to the first argument when called statically).

ApiResponse::hasMacro('name') returns whether a macro is registered. Calling an unregistered macro throws BadMethodCallException.

Non-Laravel / Testing

The trait prefers a response() factory when available (Laravel). For testing or non-framework usage you can provide a small response helper. The test bootstrap included in the project demonstrates this approach (it provides a minimal response() helper and a TestResponse object). That keeps unit tests fast and framework-independent.

API reference

Public methods

• successResponse($data = [], string $message = '', int $statusCode = 200, array $headers = [])

  • Returns a standardized success JSON response. You can pass any payload as $data.
• failResponse(string $message = '', int $statusCode = 400, array $headers = [])
  • Returns a standardized error JSON response.

Protected / overridable helpers

• formatSuccessPayload($data, string $message): array — Customize success payload shape.
• formatErrorPayload(string $message): array — Customize error payload shape.
• prepareHeaders(array $headers): array — Normalize and add default headers.
• createResponse($payload, int $statusCode, array $headers) — Central response factory (you can override to integrate with custom response objects).

Testing locally

To run tests locally (from project root):

The tests use tests/bootstrap.php which provides a minimal response() helper so tests can run without Laravel.

Roadmap

Planned features and improvements for upcoming releases:

1. Pagination helper — first-class paginatedResponse($paginator) that auto-includes meta (current page, per page, total) and pagination headers (X-Total-Count, Link).
2. Built-in exception handler — a reportableExceptions() helper that maps common exceptions (ValidationException, ModelNotFoundException, AuthenticationException) to standard error responses.
3. Laravel package auto-discovery — add extra.laravel.providers to composer.json so Laravel auto-registers the trait and helpers.
4. Response caching helper — cachedResponse($key, $ttl, $callback) for ETag/Last-Modified style caching wrappers.
5. Locale-aware messages — support translating $message arguments via Laravel's trans() helper, with a fallback when used outside Laravel.
6. Convenience shortcuts — ok(), created(), noContent(), unauthorized(), forbidden(), notFound(), validationError() covering common HTTP status codes.
7. OpenAPI / JSON:API shape presets — opt-in payload shapes that follow popular API specifications.
8. Streaming / SSE response helper — streamResponse($generator) for server-sent events and large dataset responses.
9. PHPStan + GitHub Actions quality gates — add static analysis (level 6+) and code style checks (PHP-CS-Fixer / Pint) to CI alongside the existing PHPUnit run.