Laravel Ide Helper

IDE Helper Generator for Laravel

Complete PHPDocs, directly from the source

This package generates helper files that enable your IDE to provide accurate autocompletion. Generation is done based on the files in your project, so they are always up-to-date.

The 3.x branch supports Laravel 10 and 11. For older version, use the 2.x releases.

• Installation
• Usage
  • Automatic PHPDoc generation for Laravel Facades
  • Automatic PHPDocs for models
    • Model Directories
    • Ignore Models
    • Model Hooks
  • Automatic PHPDocs generation for Laravel Fluent methods
  • Auto-completion for factory builders
  • PhpStorm Meta for Container instances
• License

Installation

Require this package with composer using the following command:

composer require --dev barryvdh/laravel-ide-helper

Usage

TL;DR

Run this to generate autocompletion for Facades. This creates _ide_helper.php

php artisan ide-helper:generate

Run this to add phpdocs for your models. Add -RW to Reset existing phpdocs and Write to the models directly.

php artisan ide-helper:models -RW

If you don’t want the full _ide_helper.php file, you can run add --write-eloquent-helper to the model command to generate small version, which is required for the @mixin \Eloquent to be able to add the QueryBuilder methods.

If you don’t want to add all the phpdocs to your Models directly, you can use --nowrite to create a seperate file. The --write-mixin option can be used to only add a @mixin to your models, but add the generated phpdocs in a seperate file. This avoids having the results marked as duplicate.

Check out this Laracasts video for a quick introduction/explanation!

• php artisan ide-helper:generate - PHPDoc generation for Laravel Facades
• php artisan ide-helper:models - PHPDocs for models
• php artisan ide-helper:meta - PhpStorm Meta file

Note: You do need CodeComplice for Sublime Text: https://github.com/spectacles/CodeComplice

Automatic PHPDoc generation for Laravel Facades

You can now re-generate the docs yourself (for future updates)

php artisan ide-helper:generate

This will generate the file _ide_helper.php which is expected to be additionally parsed by your IDE for autocomplete. You can use the config filename to change its name.

You can configure your composer.json to do this each time you update your dependencies:

"scripts": {
    "post-update-cmd": [
        "Illuminate\\Foundation\\ComposerScripts::postUpdate",
        "@php artisan ide-helper:generate",
        "@php artisan ide-helper:meta"
    ]
},

You can also publish the config file to change implementations (ie. interface to specific class) or set defaults for --helpers.

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Barryvdh\LaravelIdeHelper\IdeHelperServiceProvider" --tag=config

The generator tries to identify the real class, but if it cannot be found, you can define it in the config file.

Some classes need a working database connection. If you do not have a default working connection, some facades will not be included. You can use an in-memory SQLite driver by adding the -M option.

If you use real-time facades in your app, those will also be included in the generated file using a @mixin annotation and extending the original class underneath the facade.

Note: this feature uses the generated real-time facades files in the storage/framework/cache folder. Those files are generated on-demand as you use the real-time facade, so if the framework has not generated that first, it will not be included in the helper file. Run the route/command/code first and then regenerate the helper file and this time the real-time facade will be included in it.

You can choose to include helper files. This is not enabled by default, but you can override it with the --helpers (-H) option. The Illuminate/Support/helpers.php is already set up, but you can add/remove your own files in the config file.

Automatic PHPDoc generation for macros and mixins

This package can generate PHPDocs for macros and mixins which will be added to the _ide_helper.php file.

But this only works if you use type hinting when declaring a macro.

Str::macro('concat', function(string $str1, string $str2) : string {
    return $str1 . $str2;
});

Automatic PHPDocs for models

If you don’t want to write your properties yourself, you can use the command php artisan ide-helper:models to generate PHPDocs, based on table columns, relations and getters/setters.

Note: this command requires a working database connection to introspect the table of each model

By default, you are asked to overwrite or write to a separate file (_ide_helper_models.php). You can write the comments directly to your Model file, using the --write (-W) option, or force to not write with --nowrite (-N).

Alternatively using the --write-mixin (-M) option will only add a mixin tag to your Model file, writing the rest in (_ide_helper_models.php). The class name will be different from the model, avoiding the IDE duplicate annoyance.

Please make sure to back up your models, before writing the info.

You need the _ide_helper.php file to add the QueryBuilder methods. You can add --write-eloquent-helper/-E to generate a minimal version. If this file does not exist, you will be prompted for it.

Writing to the models should keep the existing comments and only append new properties/methods. It will not update changed properties/methods.

With the --reset (-R) option, the whole existing PHPDoc is replaced, including any comments that have been made.

php artisan ide-helper:models "App\Models\Post"

/**
 * App\Models\Post
 *
 * @property integer $id
 * @property integer $author_id
 * @property string $title
 * @property string $text
 * @property \Illuminate\Support\Carbon $created_at
 * @property \Illuminate\Support\Carbon $updated_at
 * @property-read \User $author
 * @property-read \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Collection|\Comment[] $comments
 * @method static \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder<static>|\App\Models\Post newModelQuery()
 * @method static \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder<static>|\App\Models\Post newQuery()
 * @method static \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder<static>|\App\Models\Post query()
 * @method static \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder<static>|\App\Models\Post whereTitle($value)
 * @method static \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder<static>|\App\Models\Post forAuthors(\User ...$authors)
 * …
 */

With the --write-mixin (-M) option

/**
 * …
 * @mixin IdeHelperPost
 */

Model Directories

By default, models in app/models are scanned. The optional argument tells what models to use (also outside app/models).

php artisan ide-helper:models "App\Models\Post" "App\Models\User"

You can also scan a different directory, using the --dir option (relative from the base path):

php artisan ide-helper:models --dir="path/to/models" --dir="app/src/Model"

You can publish the config file (php artisan vendor:publish) and set the default directories.

Ignore Models

Models can be ignored using the --ignore (-I) option

php artisan ide-helper:models --ignore="App\Models\Post,App\Models\User"

Or can be ignored by setting the ignored_models config

'ignored_models' => [
    App\Post::class,
    Api\User::class
],

Magic where* methods

Eloquent allows calling where<Attribute> on your models, e.g. Post::whereTitle(…) and automatically translates this to e.g. Post::where('title', '=', '…').

If for some reason it’s undesired to have them generated (one for each column), you can disable this via config write_model_magic_where and setting it to false.

Magic *_count properties

You may use the ::withCount method to count the number results from a relationship without actually loading them. Those results are then placed in attributes following the <columname>_count convention.

By default, these attributes are generated in the phpdoc. You can turn them off by setting the config write_model_relation_count_properties to false.

Generics annotations

Laravel 9 introduced generics annotations in DocBlocks for collections. PhpStorm 2022.3 and above support the use of generics annotations within @property and @property-read declarations in DocBlocks, e.g. Collection<User> instead of Collection|User[].

These can be disabled by setting the config use_generics_annotations to false.

Support @comment based on DocBlock

In order to better support IDEs, relations and getters/setters can also add a comment to a property like table columns. Therefore a custom docblock @comment is used:

class Users extends Model
{
    /**
     * @comment Get User's full name
     *
     * @return string
     */
    public function getFullNameAttribute(): string
    {
        return $this->first_name . ' ' .$this->last_name ;
    }
}

// => after generate models

/**
 * App\Models\Users
 * 
 * @property-read string $full_name Get User's full name
 * …
 */

Dedicated Eloquent Builder methods

A new method to the eloquent models was added called newEloquentBuilder Reference where we can add support for creating a new dedicated class instead of using local scopes in the model itself.

If for some reason it’s undesired to have them generated (one for each column), you can disable this via config write_model_external_builder_methods and setting it to false.

Custom Relationship Types

If you are using relationships not built into Laravel you will need to specify the name and returning class in the config to get proper generation.

'additional_relation_types' => [
    'externalHasMany' => \My\Package\externalHasMany::class
],

Found relationships will typically generate a return value based on the name of the relationship.

If your custom relationships don’t follow this traditional naming scheme you can define its return type manually. The available options are many and morphTo.

'additional_relation_return_types' => [
    'externalHasMultiple' => 'many'
],

Model Hooks

If you need additional information on your model from sources that are not handled by default, you can hook in to the generation process with model hooks to add extra information on the fly. Simply create a class that implements ModelHookInterface and add it to the model_hooks array in the config:

'model_hooks' => [
   MyCustomHook::class,
],

The run method will be called during generation for every model and receives the current running ModelsCommand and the current Model, e.g.:

class MyCustomHook implements ModelHookInterface
{
    public function run(ModelsCommand $command, Model $model): void
    {
        if (! $model instanceof MyModel) {
            return;
        }

        $command->setProperty('custom', 'string', true, false, 'My custom property');
        $command->unsetMethod('method');
        $command->setMethod('method', $command->getMethodType($model, '\Some\Class'), ['$param']);
    }
}

/**
 * MyModel
 *
 * @property integer $id
 * @property-read string $custom

Automatic PHPDocs generation for Laravel Fluent methods

If you need PHPDocs support for Fluent methods in migration, for example

$table->string("somestring")->nullable()->index();

After publishing vendor, simply change the include_fluent line in your config/ide-helper.php file into:

'include_fluent' => true,

Then run php artisan ide-helper:generate, you will now see all Fluent methods recognized by your IDE.

Auto-completion for factory builders

If you would like the factory()->create() and factory()->make() methods to return the correct model class, you can enable custom factory builders with the include_factory_builders line in your config/ide-helper.php file. Deprecated for Laravel 8 or latest.

'include_factory_builders' => true,

For this to work, you must also publish the PhpStorm Meta file (see below).

PhpStorm Meta for Container instances

It’s possible to generate a PhpStorm meta file to add support for factory design pattern. For Laravel, this means we can make PhpStorm understand what kind of object we are resolving from the IoC Container. For example, events will return an Illuminate\Events\Dispatcher object, so with the meta file you can call app('events') and it will autocomplete the Dispatcher methods.

php artisan ide-helper:meta

app('events')->fire();
\App::make('events')->fire();

/** @var \Illuminate\Foundation\Application $app */
$app->make('events')->fire();

// When the key is not found, it uses the argument as class name
app('App\SomeClass');
// Also works with
app(App\SomeClass::class);

Note: You might need to restart PhpStorm and make sure .phpstorm.meta.php is indexed.

Note: When you receive a FatalException: class not found, check your config (for example, remove S3 as cloud driver when you don’t have S3 configured. Remove Redis ServiceProvider when you don’t use it).

You can change the generated filename via the config meta_filename. This can be useful for cases where you want to take advantage of PhpStorm’s support of the directory .phpstorm.meta.php/: all files placed there are parsed, should you want to provide additional files to PhpStorm.

License

The Laravel IDE Helper Generator is open-sourced software licensed under the MIT license