Playa: Cookie-Based Temporary Players for Laravel

Playa gives a Laravel app a lightweight Player model for visitors who aren't logged in. It's aimed at QR-code journeys, event games, voting screens, kiosk flows, and demos where you need to recognize a returning device without putting users through registration.

#Tracking Players via Middleware

Add the playa middleware to any route where you want a player resolved or created:

Route::get('/join/{game}', JoinGameController::class)
    ->middleware(['web', 'playa'])
    ->name('games.join');

On the first visit the middleware creates a player record and sets the cookie. On subsequent requests it resolves the existing player and, by default, refreshes the expiry timestamp.

#Accessing the Current Player

Playa exposes the resolved player through both the request and a facade:

$player = $request->player();
 
use CharlieLangridge\Playa\Facades\Playa;
 
$player = Playa::player();
$player = Playa::findByUuid($uuid);
Playa::forget();

The model includes name and username columns plus a JSON data column for any application-specific details you want to attach — score, answers, position in a flow, and so on.

#Linking to Authenticated Users

A player can be associated with a real user account without forcing the visitor to log in first. This is useful when someone starts a flow anonymously and later authenticates:

$player->linkUser(auth()->user());
$player->unlinkUser();

The package supports bigint, uuid, ulid, and string user key types via the user_id_type config option, and auto_link_authenticated_user will attach the current user automatically when set to true.

#Lifecycle Events

Playa dispatches events at each stage so you can hook into player activity without modifying the middleware:

• PlayerCreated
• PlayerResolved
• PlayerRenewed
• PlayerExpired
• PlayerLinkedToUser

These are handy for analytics, audit trails, or triggering follow-up jobs when a device returns.

#Expiry and Pruning

Players have a configurable lifetime (default 30 days) and can renew on each visit. Expired records aren't deleted automatically — run the artisan command to clean them up, optionally with a grace period:

php artisan playa:prune
php artisan playa:prune --hours=24

Playa requires PHP 8.4 and supports Laravel 11, 12, and 13.

To learn more, view the source on GitHub.