README

A beautiful, drop-in Tailwind CSS dashboard for Spatie Laravel Activitylog. Browse, filter, diff, analyse and export the audit trail of your Laravel application — with analytics charts, a timeline, saved views, dark mode and a read-only JSON API. No build step, no Node, no npm.

Why this package
Features
Requirements
Quickstart
Configuration
Analytics dashboard
Timeline view
Saved views
Exports
Performance indexes
Authorization & access control
JSON API
Localization
Custom activity model / connection
Testing
Changelog
License

Why this package

Zero build step. Tailwind and Alpine.js are loaded at runtime — nothing to compile, no npm install.
Drop-in. composer require, visit a URL, done. It reads your existing activity_log table.
Broad Laravel support. Laravel 9, 10, 11 and 12 on PHP 8.0+ — not just the latest release.
Multi-database. MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, SQLite and SQL Server, all tested. Search works everywhere (portable LIKE by default, optional MySQL fulltext).
Safe by default. Authorization gate + optional allow-lists, noindex headers, and CSV exports hardened against spreadsheet formula injection.
Fully tested. 80+ tests run against a Laravel 9→12 matrix on every push.

Features

📋 Activity list with event badges, subject & causer links, relative timestamps and pagination.
🔍 Inline change diff — expand any row to see the old/new value of every changed attribute.
📄 Detail page per activity: field diff, custom properties, raw JSON, batch link and the full history of the same record.
🧰 Rich filters — free-text search, model, subject ID, event, log name, causer, batch and date range, with quick date presets (Today, Last 7/30 days, This month). Active filters show as removable chips and persist across pages.
💾 Saved views — save a filter set and recall it in one click, scoped per user.
📊 Analytics dashboard — activity over time, breakdown by event and log name, and top causers/subjects, rendered with Chart.js and honouring your current filters.
🕒 Timeline view — a day-grouped vertical timeline as an alternative to the table.
📈 Statistics cards (total / created / updated / deleted) for the current filter, with optional live auto-refresh.
⬇️ Exports — CSV, JSON, Excel (XLSX) and PDF. Streamed, row-capped, and injection-safe.
🔐 Authorization gate, configurable route prefix/domain/middleware, plus optional user/role allow-lists.
🔌 Read-only JSON API (opt-in) over the same filters — consume the log from a SPA, dashboard or automated agent.
🌍 Localization — publishable language files.
🌓 Dark mode, responsive layout, accessible markup.

Requirements

PHP ^8.0
Laravel ^9.0, ^10.0, ^11.0 or ^12.0
spatie/laravel-activitylog ^4.0, already logging activity
Optional: maatwebsite/excel for Excel export, barryvdh/laravel-dompdf for PDF export

Quickstart

composer require nsd7/laravel-activitylog-ui

That's it — visit /admin/activity-log while logged in.

Make sure Spatie's activity_log table exists (see the Spatie installation guide). Optionally publish the config and run the extras:

# Publish the config file (optional)
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=activitylog-ui-config

# Publish the views to customise the UI (optional)
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=activitylog-ui-views

# Publish language files (optional)
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=activitylog-ui-lang

# Publish migrations for saved views + performance indexes (optional)
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=activitylog-ui-migrations
php artisan migrate

By default the dashboard is protected by the web and auth middleware. Define a gate (below) to restrict it further.

Configuration

After publishing, everything lives in config/activitylog-ui.php:

Key	Default	Description
`enabled`	`true`	Master switch. When off, no routes are registered.
`route.prefix`	`admin/activity-log`	URL prefix (env `ACTIVITYLOG_UI_PATH`).
`route.domain`	`null`	Optional domain (env `ACTIVITYLOG_UI_DOMAIN`).
`route.middleware`	`['web', 'auth']`	Middleware applied to all routes.
`gate`	`viewActivityLogUi`	Gate checked when defined.
`access.allowed_users`	`[]`	Allow-list of user ids or emails (enforced when non-empty).
`access.allowed_roles`	`[]`	Allow-list of role names (enforced when non-empty).
`features.analytics`	`true`	Analytics dashboard + data endpoint.
`features.timeline`	`true`	Timeline view toggle.
`features.saved_views`	`true`	Saved views (needs the migration).
`features.live_counts`	`false`	Background-refresh the statistics total.
`features.api`	`false`	Read-only JSON API.
`per_page` / `per_page_options`	`15` / `[10,15,25,50,100]`	Pagination.
`search_driver`	`like`	`like` (portable) or `fulltext` (MySQL/MariaDB).
`causer_display_attributes`	`['name','full_name','username','email']`	First non-empty wins.
`date_format`	`Y-m-d H:i:s`	Timestamp display format.
`show_stats`	`true`	Show the statistics cards.
`analytics.cache_ttl`	`3600`	Seconds to cache the analytics payload (`0` = off).
`analytics.range_days`	`30`	Default window of the "activity over time" chart.
`live_counts.poll_interval`	`15`	Seconds between live-count refreshes.
`saved_views.max_per_user`	`50`	Cap per user.
`export.enabled`	`true`	Allow exports.
`export.limit`	`10000`	Max rows written per export.
`export.formats`	`['csv','json','xlsx','pdf']`	Formats offered in the UI.

Analytics dashboard

Open the Analytics tab for charts computed from the currently filtered logs: activity over time, counts by event and by log name, and the top causers and subjects. The payload is cached per filter set (analytics.cache_ttl) and the date grouping is portable across MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite and SQL Server. Disable with features.analytics => false.

Timeline view

The Timeline tab renders the same filtered activities as a day-grouped vertical timeline — handy for scanning what happened and when. Disable with features.timeline => false.

Saved views

Save the current filter set a name and recall it with one click later. Views are scoped to the authenticated user. Run the published migration to create the activitylog_ui_saved_views table; until then the feature degrades gracefully and simply stays hidden.

Exports (CSV / JSON / Excel / PDF)

Export the currently filtered result in any configured format from the Export menu:

CSV and JSON work out of the box and are streamed.
Excel (XLSX) uses maatwebsite/excel when installed, and falls back to CSV when it isn't.
PDF uses barryvdh/laravel-dompdf when installed, and falls back to JSON when it isn't.

All exports are capped at export.limit rows and string values are neutralised against CSV/formula injection.

Performance indexes

For large tables, publish and run the optional index migration (included in activitylog-ui-migrations). It adds indexes on event, created_at and a composite (log_name, created_at) on top of Spatie's defaults, which speeds up filtering and ordering. Building indexes can briefly lock the table, so run it in a maintenance window.

Authorization & access control

Access is layered:

Route middleware (web, auth by default).

Gate — if a gate named by gate is defined, it must pass:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Gate;

Gate::define('viewActivityLogUi', fn ($user) => $user->is_admin);

Allow-lists (optional) — set access.allowed_users (ids or emails) and/or access.allowed_roles (works with hasRole(), getRoleNames(), e.g. spatie/laravel-permission). Each list is only enforced when non-empty, so the defaults change nothing.

JSON API

Enable features.api => true for a read-only API under your prefix:

GET  {prefix}/api/activities           # paginated, accepts the same filters as the UI
GET  {prefix}/api/activities/{id}       # a single activity with its change diff

It honours the same authorization as the UI and is ideal for SPAs, dashboards and automated agents.

Localization

Publish the language files with --tag=activitylog-ui-lang and translate lang/vendor/activitylog-ui/{locale}/messages.php. The UI uses your app locale automatically.

Custom activity model / connection

The UI resolves the activity model through Spatie, so a custom model or database connection configured in config/activitylog.php (activity_model) is picked up automatically — including a custom table name.

Testing

composer install
composer test

The suite runs against a Laravel 9→12 / PHP 8.1→8.4 matrix in CI.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for what changed in each release.

License

The MIT License (MIT). See LICENSE.

nsd7 / laravel-activitylog-ui

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