Laravel API Resource Links

October 10, 2019 / Paul Redmond

Laravel Resource Links is a package by Ruben Van Assche and Spatie that adds links to your Laravel API resources without a hassle.

Here’s one example from the package’s documentation that illustrates a typical UserResource matching a Laravel Resource Controllers:

class UserResource extends JsonResource
{
    use Spatie\ResourceLinks\HasLinks;
    use Spatie\ResourceLinks\HasMeta;

    public function toArray($request): array
    {
        return [
            'id' => $this->id,
            'name' => $this->name,
            'links' => $this->links(UsersController::class),
        ];
    }

    public static function meta()
    {
        return [
            'links' => self::collectionLinks(UsersController::class),
        ];
    }
}

The above code will generate the following:

{
   "data":[
      {
         "id":1,
         "name": "Ruben Van Assche",
         "links": {
            "show": "https://laravel.app/users/1",
            "edit": "https://laravel.app/users/1/edit",
            "update": "https://laravel.app/users/1",
            "delete": "https://laravel.app/users/1"
         }
      }
   ],
   "meta": {
      "links": {
         "index": "https://laravel.app/users",
         "create": "https://laravel.app/users/create",
         "store":  "https://laravel.app/users"
      }
   }
}

Now your frontend has everything necessary to navigate the API for a given user. Providing collection meta also provides access to links for listing existing users and creating new users.

The laravel-resource-links documentation is an excellent place to start learning more about this package. You can also view the source code on GitHub at spatie/laravel-resource-links.