goodcat/laravel-l10n

An opinionated Laravel package for app localization

v0.3.3 2026-02-07 18:05 UTC

Requires

• php: ^8.2
• illuminate/http: ^12.44.0
• illuminate/routing: ^12.44.0
• illuminate/support: ^12.44.0

Requires (Dev)

• larastan/larastan: ^3.5
• laravel/pint: ^1.22
• orchestra/testbench: ^10.4
• pestphp/pest: ^3.8

MIT

• Matteo Palazzo

• l10n
• laravel
• localization
• goodcat

README

An opinionated Laravel package for app localization.

Quickstart

Get started with laravel-l10n in three steps.

1. Download the package via Composer.

   composer require goodcat/laravel-l10n

2. Add the locale middlewares to your bootstrap/app.php file.

   return Application::configure(basePath: dirname(__DIR__))
       ->withMiddleware(function (Middleware $middleware): void {
           $middleware->web([
               \Goodcat\L10n\Middleware\SetLocale::class,
               \Goodcat\L10n\Middleware\SetPreferredLocale::class,
           ]);
       });

3. Define localized routes using the lang() method.

   Route::get('/example', Controller::class)
       ->lang(['fr', 'de', 'it', 'es']);

That's it. You're all set to start using laravel-l10n.

Localized Routes

Defining Localized Routes

Use the lang() method to define which locales a route should support:

Route::get('/example', Controller::class)
    ->lang(['es', 'fr', 'it']);

This will generate:

• /example (fallback locale)
• /es/ejemplo (Spanish, translated via language file)
• /fr/example (French, no translation defined)
• /it/example (Italian, no translation defined)

Route groups

To avoid repetitive language definitions on every single route, you can use Route::lang()->group():

Route::lang(['es', 'it'])->group(function () {
    Route::get('/example', fn () => 'Hello, World!');
    Route::get('/another', fn () => 'Another route');
});

All routes inside the group will inherit the locale definitions. A route can also extend the group's locales with its own lang() call — the locales are merged:

Route::lang(['es', 'it'])->group(function () {
    Route::get('/example', fn () => 'Hello, World!'); // es, it
    Route::get('/another', fn () => 'Another route')
        ->lang(['fr']); // es, it, fr
});

Translating Route URIs

Manage route translations in dedicated language files. The expected file structure is as follows:

/lang
├── /es
│   └── routes.php
├── /fr
│   └── routes.php
├── /it
│   └── routes.php

Inside your routes.php file, map the original route URI to a translated slug:

// lang/es/routes.php
return [
    'example' => 'ejemplo',
];

If no translation is provided for a given locale, the original URI is used as-is.

Note

The key should be the route URI without the leading slash. For example, for Route::get('/example'), the key should be example.

Domain Translations

If your application uses domain-based routing, you can translate domains in the same routes.php language files. The key is the original domain string:

// lang/es/routes.php
return [
    'example'     => 'ejemplo',
    'example.com' => 'es.example.com',
];

URL Generation

The package automatically replaces Laravel's default URL generator with LocalizedUrlGenerator, ensuring that the route() helper generates the correct URLs for the current locale without any extra configuration.

Note

If you need to use a custom URL generator, you can override it in your AppServiceProvider by aliasing your own implementation to the url service.

Using the route() and action() Helpers

Once the generator is registered, the route() helper will intelligently create URLs based on the current application locale.

• For the current locale: The helper automatically generates the correct URL based on the active language.
• For a specific locale: You can explicitly request a URL for a different language by passing the lang parameter to the route() helper.

// Assuming the current locale is 'en'
route('example'); // Returns "/example"

// To generate a URL for a different locale
route('example', ['lang' => 'fr']); // Returns "/fr/example"

// If a translation exists for 'es' in lang/es/routes.php, the translated slug is used
route('example', ['lang' => 'es']); // Returns "/es/ejemplo"

The action() helper works the same way:

action(Controller::class, ['lang' => 'es']); // Returns "/es/ejemplo"

Locale Preference

This package provides a mechanism for automatically detecting a user's preferred language.

The SetPreferredLocale middleware is responsible for populating the preferred locale. It does this by checking a series of configurable preferred locale resolvers.

By default, the package checks the following sources in order:

1. SessionLocale: Checks if a locale was set in the session.
2. UserLocale: Checks if the authenticated user has a preferred locale (the user model must implement Laravel's Illuminate\Contracts\Translation\HasLocalePreference interface).
3. BrowserLocale: Falls back to the browser's Accept-Language header.

Customizing Resolvers

You can customize the resolvers by setting the static property on the L10n class:

use Goodcat\L10n\L10n;
use Goodcat\L10n\Resolvers\BrowserLocale;

L10n::$preferredLocaleResolvers = [
    new BrowserLocale,
];

Creating a Custom Resolver

Implement the LocaleResolver interface to create your own resolver:

use Goodcat\L10n\Resolvers\LocaleResolver;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;

class CookieLocale implements LocaleResolver
{
    public function resolve(Request $request): ?string
    {
        return $request->cookie('locale');
    }
}

Then add it to the resolver chain:

L10n::$preferredLocaleResolvers = [
    new CookieLocale,
    new SessionLocale,
    new UserLocale,
    new BrowserLocale,
];

Helpers

This package adds several helper methods to your Laravel application.

Application Helpers

// Get the user's preferred locale
app()->getPreferredLocale(); // Returns ?string

// Set the user's preferred locale (dispatches PreferredLocaleUpdated event)
app()->setPreferredLocale('es');

// Check if a locale is the fallback locale
app()->isFallbackLocale('en'); // Returns bool

Route Matching

Use L10n::is() to check if the current route matches a given pattern, regardless of the locale:

L10n::is('dashboard');  // Matches /dashboard, /es/dashboard, /it/bacheca, etc.
L10n::is('admin.*');    // Wildcard patterns are supported, just like Route::is()

This is the localized equivalent of Route::is(). It resolves the canonical route behind any localized variant and delegates to Route::named().

Localized Views

The application's view loader is configured to automatically search for a localized version of a view before falling back to the generic one.

When you render a view, the system follows a specific search order based on the current application locale.

• Locale-specific path: The application first tries to find the view within a folder that matches the current locale. For example, if the locale is set to it, it will look for the example view in resources/views/it/example.blade.php.
• Generic path: If the view is not found in the locale-specific folder, it will then fall back to the generic resources/views/example.blade.php.

This makes it straightforward to organize your views with a clean, language-based folder structure, like the one below.

/resources/views
├── example.blade.php
├── /it
│   └── example.blade.php
└── /es
    └── example.blade.php

The example.blade.php file in the root views folder can serve as your default template, while the localized versions (it/example.blade.php, es/example.blade.php) contain language-specific content or layouts.

JavaScript URL Generation

This package provides helper functions for generating localized URLs in your JavaScript/TypeScript frontend. Two stubs are available: one for Wayfinder and one for Ziggy. Given the following route definition:

Route::get('/foo/{id}', Controller::class)
    ->lang(['it', 'es'])
    ->name('foo');

Wayfinder

If you're using Wayfinder, publish the TypeScript helper:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=l10n-wayfinder

Note

The route() helper only works with named routes, actions are not supported.

This creates a resources/js/l10n.ts file with the following exports:

• route(routes, args?) - Selects the appropriate localized route based on the current locale.
• setFallbackLocale(locale) - Sets the fallback locale (defaults to en).

Import the route helper and pass Wayfinder's generated route functions:

import { route } from '@/l10n';
import foo from '@/routes/foo';

const esUrl = route(foo, { id: 1, lang: 'es' }).url;

The locale is resolved in the following order:

1. The lang parameter, if provided.
2. The lang attribute of the <html lang="en"> element.
3. The fallback locale.

Ziggy

If you're using Ziggy, publish the JavaScript helper:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=l10n-ziggy

This creates a resources/js/l10n.js file with a route function.

Use route() as a drop-in replacement for Ziggy's route() function:

import { route } from '@/l10n';

route('foo', { id: 1, lang: 'it' });

The function automatically looks for a localized route by appending the locale to the route name (e.g., foo.es). If a localized route exists, it uses that; otherwise, it falls back to the original route name.

Configuration

To customize the package behavior, publish the configuration file:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=l10n-config

Add Locale Prefix

By default, this package adds the locale prefix to translated routes, except for the fallback locale.

This means a route like /example will be served by the clean URL /example for the default language (e.g. English), while other locales will include their prefix (e.g. /es/ejemplo, /it/esempio).

If you prefer to hide the locale prefix for all languages, set add_locale_prefix to false in your config/l10n.php file. After this change, routes will use translated URIs without locale prefixes (e.g. /ejemplo instead of /es/ejemplo).

Route Caching

Localized routes are fully compatible with Laravel's route caching. When routes are cached, the package skips route generation at runtime (the localized variants are already included in the cache).

php artisan route:cache