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Config-driven Laravel menu manager for Blade sidebar navigation, top menus, dropdown menus, and permission-aware admin panel links.

Menu Manager lets you define Laravel navigation menus in one config file and render them with one reusable Blade view. Configure menu items, named routes, route parameters, HTML tags, CSS classes, Font Awesome icons, dropdowns, and Spatie permission checks from config/menu-manager.php.

Features

Config-driven Laravel sidebar and top navigation menus.
One reusable Blade renderer for multiple menu locations.
Permission-aware links using Laravel authorization and Spatie permissions.
Dropdown menu support with configurable wrapper, toggle, and child classes.
Route parameters, icons, custom attributes, active classes, and raw HTML items.
Publishable config and views for Laravel admin panels and dashboards.

Install

composer require caydeesoft/menu-manager

Publish the config:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=menu-manager-config

Menu Location

After publishing, configure all menus here:

config/menu-manager.php

Package source config:

vendor/caydeesoft/menu-manager/src/config/menu-manager.php

Direct package development config:

src/config/menu-manager.php

Config Structure

Each menu has a view section and an items section:

return [
    'menus' => [
        'sidebar' => [
            'view' => [
                'wrapper' => [
                    'tag' => 'ul',
                    'class' => 'sidebar-nav',
                    'attributes' => [
                        'role' => 'list',
                    ],
                ],
                'header' => [
                    'tag' => 'li',
                    'class' => 'sidebar-header',
                    'attributes' => [
                        'role' => 'presentation',
                    ],
                ],
                'item' => [
                    'tag' => 'li',
                    'class' => 'sidebar-item',
                    'active_class' => 'active',
                ],
                'link' => [
                    'class' => 'sidebar-link',
                ],
                'icon' => [
                    'tag' => 'i',
                    'class' => 'align-middle',
                ],
                'label' => [
                    'tag' => 'span',
                    'class' => 'align-middle',
                ],
            ],
            'items' => [
                [
                    'type' => 'header',
                    'title' => 'Main',
                    'position' => 1,
                ],
                [
                    'type' => 'item',
                    'title' => 'Dashboard',
                    'route' => 'backend.admin_dashboard',
                    'icon' => 'fas fa-home',
                    'position' => 2,
                ],
            ],
        ],
    ],
];

That renders:

<ul class="sidebar-nav" role="list">
    <li class="sidebar-header" role="presentation">Main</li>
    <li class="sidebar-item">
        <a href="{{ route('backend.admin_dashboard') }}" class="sidebar-link">
            <i class="fas fa-home align-middle"></i>
            <span class="align-middle">Dashboard</span>
        </a>
    </li>
</ul>

Rendering

Use the generic renderer for any configured menu:

@include('menu-manager::menu', ['menu' => 'sidebar'])

Convenience aliases are also available:

@include('menu-manager::sidebar')
@include('menu-manager::top')

Both aliases use the same generic Blade renderer internally.

Item Types

Header

[
    'type' => 'header',
    'title' => 'Revenue',
    'position' => 20,
],

Item

[
    'type' => 'item',
    'title' => 'Transactions',
    'route' => 'backend.transaction.index',
    'icon' => 'fas fa-dollar-sign',
    'permission' => 'view_transaction',
    'position' => 22,
],

Item With Route Params

[
    'type' => 'item',
    'title' => 'Activity Log',
    'route' => 'backend.logs.index',
    'params' => [
        'user' => 1,
    ],
    'icon' => 'fas fa-pen',
    'position' => 41,
],

Dropdown

[
    'type' => 'dropdown',
    'title' => 'Settings',
    'icon' => 'fas fa-tools',
    'permission' => 'view_settings',
    'position' => 50,
    'children' => [
        [
            'type' => 'item',
            'title' => 'General',
            'route' => 'backend.settings.general',
            'permission' => 'view_settings',
            'position' => 1,
        ],
    ],
],

Configure dropdown HTML in the menu view section:

'dropdown' => [
    'tag' => 'li',
    'class' => 'sidebar-item',
    'toggle' => [
        'class' => 'sidebar-link collapsed',
        'attributes' => [
            'data-bs-toggle' => 'collapse',
            'aria-expanded' => 'false',
        ],
    ],
    'children' => [
        'tag' => 'ul',
        'class' => 'sidebar-dropdown list-unstyled collapse',
        'attributes' => [
            'role' => 'list',
        ],
    ],
],

Raw HTML

Use html for special menu entries that do not fit the standard item shape:

[
    'type' => 'html',
    'html' => '<li class="nav-item"><button type="button" class="btn btn-theme-toggle">Light</button></li>',
    'position' => 1,
],

Per-Item Classes And Attributes

You can override classes on any item:

[
    'type' => 'item',
    'title' => 'Dashboard',
    'route' => 'backend.admin_dashboard',
    'icon' => 'fas fa-home',
    'item_class' => 'sidebar-item custom-item',
    'link_class' => 'sidebar-link custom-link',
    'icon_class' => 'align-middle text-primary',
    'label_class' => 'align-middle fw-bold',
    'link_attributes' => [
        'data-turbo' => 'false',
    ],
    'position' => 2,
],

Permissions

The menu is built only for authenticated users.

permission shows the entry when the user has that permission.
permissions shows the entry when the user has at least one listed permission.
Entries without permission or permissions are visible to any authenticated user.

Dropdown children are filtered by permission too.

Sorting

Items are sorted by position in ascending order.

Views

Publish views only if you need to change the renderer itself:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=menu-manager-views

Published views:

resources/views/vendor/menu-manager/menu.blade.php
resources/views/vendor/menu-manager/sidebar.blade.php
resources/views/vendor/menu-manager/top.blade.php
resources/views/vendor/menu-manager/partials/items.blade.php
resources/views/vendor/menu-manager/partials/attributes.blade.php

Releases

Releases are documented automatically by GitHub Actions when a semantic version tag is pushed:

git tag v1.0.0
git push origin v1.0.0

The release workflow validates Composer, installs dependencies, runs PHPUnit, and creates a GitHub release with generated release notes.

Update CHANGELOG.md before tagging.

MCP Compatibility

This package is a Laravel Composer package, not a Model Context Protocol server. It includes MCP.md and llms.txt for AI/agent-friendly project metadata, but it does not publish an MCP server.json because it does not expose MCP tools, resources, prompts, or transport.

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