Introduction

Resting is a Laravel package for building strict, typed REST endpoints. It replaces the usual mix of FormRequest validators, API Resources, and OpenAPI annotations with a single abstraction: the Resource.

A Resource is a PHP class whose properties are typed Field objects. Each field knows how to:

• Parse input from a JSON payload, query string, or path parameter.
• Validate the parsed value against type constraints and any extra rules you attach.
• Format itself for an outgoing JSON response.
• Describe itself in an OpenAPI 3 schema.

That single definition then powers request parsing, response shaping, OpenAPI generation, and Eloquent transformation — without you having to repeat the field list anywhere else.

A first look

use Seier\Resting\Resource;
use Seier\Resting\Fields\IntField;
use Seier\Resting\Fields\StringField;

class UserResource extends Resource
{
    public StringField $name;
    public IntField $age;

    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->name = (new StringField())->trim()->maxLength(120);
        $this->age = (new IntField())->min(0);
    }
}

This single class can:

• Validate and parse POST /users request bodies.
• Be returned from a controller and serialized to a typed JSON response.
• Appear as a components.schemas.UserResource entry in your generated OpenAPI document.

Why not Laravel's API Resources?

Laravel's built-in API Resources solve the response-shaping problem well, but the request side typically lives in a separate FormRequest with string-keyed rules, and OpenAPI documentation is yet another layer. Three sources of truth, three places to drift.

Resting flips this: one resource definition is the source of truth, and the rest is derived.

Design principles

• Strict by default. Fields are required unless you opt them out. Type mismatches are validation errors, not silent coercion.
• Composable. Field rules, predicate-based conditional validation, and resource-level cross-field validators stack cleanly.
• No magic strings. Validation rules live as method calls on typed objects, not as string DSLs.
• Laravel-native. Service provider auto-registration, route macros, Eloquent helpers, PHPUnit assertions.

What's next

• Installation — install the package and publish config.
• Quickstart — build a complete endpoint in five minutes.
• Resources — the Resource lifecycle in detail.
• Fields — every field type and its options.