README

🚀 Docs Generate

Automatic API documentation for your Laravel app — no annotations or doc blocks needed, OpenAPI 3.0 JSON & Swagger UI.

Generate beautiful API documentation automatically from your existing Laravel code

☕ Buy me a coffee

✨ Why Docs Generate?

Stop writing documentation manually! This package automatically generates beautiful Swagger/OpenAPI documentation from your existing Laravel code—no annotations, no code pollution, no maintenance headaches.

🎯 Perfect For:

Laravel APIs that need professional documentation
Teams who want docs that stay in sync with code
Developers who hate writing documentation
Projects that need client-ready API docs

🚀 Quick Start

Get documented instantly:

# 1. Install
composer require provydon/docs-generate

# 2. Publish config
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=docs-generate

# 3. Generate docs (instant!)
php artisan docs:generate

# 4. View your beautiful docs
# Visit: http://your-app-url/docs

That's it! 🎉 Your API is now fully documented.

🔗 Use with Any API Client

The generated JSON is compatible with all major API clients:

# Get the raw OpenAPI JSON
curl http://your-app-url/docs.json

Import into your favorite tools:

📮 Postman - Import OpenAPI 3.0 JSON
🌙 Insomnia - Import OpenAPI spec
🚀 Thunder Client - VS Code extension
🔥 Bruno - Open-source API client
📱 Any OpenAPI-compatible tool

Code changes → run command → docs automatically reflect changes

🔄 Documentation Stays in Sync

The best part? Your documentation automatically stays up-to-date with your code:

Make code changes → Add new routes, update controllers, modify validation
Run php artisan docs:generate → Regenerates the documentation
Deploy your code → Documentation file goes with your code
Documentation is always current → No manual updates needed!

The docs.json file lives in your public/ folder, so it's part of your project and gets deployed with every code update. Your API documentation will always reflect your latest code changes.

🧱 Always Auto Update Your Documentation

Add php artisan docs:generate to your deployment script or build pipeline so every release ships with freshly generated docs:

add php artisan docs:generate to ur deployment script or in ur build pipeline

You can even surface the progress logs in your CI/CD output:

🚀 Generating API documentation...

Found 81 API routes

✅ API documentation generated successfully!

📄 Output: /app/public/docs.json

🌐 View at: https://fikets.com/docs

✨ What You Get

Before	After
❌ No documentation ❌ Manual maintenance ❌ Outdated docs	✅ Beautiful Swagger UI ✅ Auto-generated from code ✅ Always up-to-date

🎨 Beautiful Swagger UI

Modern, responsive design
Interactive "Try it out" functionality
Professional API explorer
Mobile-friendly interface

🔄 Zero Maintenance

Auto-detects your routes, validation, and auth
Stays in sync with your code changes
No annotations to maintain
Regenerate with one command

🛡️ Production Ready

Configurable authentication
CORS handling included
Error handling built-in
Laravel-native integration

🎯 Key Features

Feature	Description
🚫 Zero Annotations	No code pollution—works with existing code
🔍 Smart Detection	Auto-detects routes, validation, and auth
📝 Inline Validation	Supports `$request->validate()` calls
🎨 Beautiful UI	Modern Swagger UI with "Try it out"
🔒 Auth Ready	Built-in authentication support
⚙️ Fully Configurable	Customize everything via config
🚀 Laravel Native	Uses Laravel conventions and patterns

📋 Requirements

PHP 8.1+
Laravel 10.0+

🛠️ Installation

Step 1: Install via Composer

composer require provydon/docs-generate

Step 2: Publish Configuration

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=docs-generate

This creates:

config/docs-generate.php - Configuration file
resources/views/vendor/docs-generate/ - Swagger UI view

Step 3: Generate Documentation

php artisan docs:generate

Step 4: View Your Documentation

Navigate to: http://your-app-url/docs

🎨 Authentication

Documentation Access Control

Control who can access your API documentation:

# No authentication (default)
DOCS_AUTH_ENABLED=false

# Authenticated users only
DOCS_AUTH_ENABLED=true
DOCS_AUTH_TYPE=authenticated

# Specific emails only
DOCS_AUTH_ENABLED=true
DOCS_AUTH_TYPE=specific_emails
DOCS_AUTH_ALLOWED_EMAILS=admin@example.com,developer@example.com

API Authentication Detection

The package automatically detects authentication requirements by checking for these middleware:

auth
auth:sanctum
auth:api
sanctum
Any middleware containing Authenticate

⚙️ Configuration

Route Configuration

Customize your documentation routes:

# Enable/disable route registration (default: true)
DOCS_ROUTES_ENABLED=true

# Customize documentation path (default: /docs)
DOCS_PATH=/api-docs

# Customize JSON path (default: /docs.json)
DOCS_JSON_PATH=/api-docs.json

API Information

Edit config/docs-generate.php:

'info' => [
    'title' => env('APP_NAME', 'Laravel API'),
    'description' => 'API Documentation automatically generated',
    'version' => '1.0.0',
    'contact' => [
        'name' => 'API Support',
        'email' => 'support@example.com',
    ],
],

📁 Output File

The generated API documentation is saved as public/docs.json in your Laravel project. This approach offers several benefits:

Always Accessible: File is in the public folder, accessible via web server
Stays with Code: Documentation file is part of your project and version controlled
Auto-Updates: Latest docs automatically follow code updates when you deploy
Part of Project: Included in version control and deployments
CDN Ready: Can be served via CDN for better performance
Simple: No complex storage configuration needed

Direct Access:

https://your-app.com/docs.json

Via Route (with error handling):

https://your-app.com/docs.json

🔧 How It Works

1. Route Analysis

Scans all Laravel routes with the api/ prefix and extracts:

HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, etc.)
URI patterns and parameters
Controller and method names
Applied middleware (for auth detection)

2. Validation Extraction

For each route, it inspects the controller method:

Identifies FormRequest classes in method parameters
Detects inline $request->validate() calls in method body
Extracts validation rules from both sources
Converts rules to OpenAPI schema definitions

3. Smart Type Detection

Based on field names and validation rules, it automatically detects:

email fields → format: email
password fields → format: password, minLength: 8
phone fields → format: phone
url fields → format: uri
date fields → format: date
uuid fields → format: uuid
image/file fields → format: binary

4. Authentication Detection

Automatically adds security requirements if route has:

auth middleware
auth:sanctum middleware
auth:api middleware
sanctum middleware
Any middleware containing Authenticate

📚 Examples

Example 1: FormRequest Validation

Laravel Code:

Route::post('/api/users', [UserController::class, 'store'])
    ->middleware('auth:sanctum');

class StoreUserRequest extends FormRequest
{
    public function rules()
    {
        return [
            'name' => 'required|string|max:255',
            'email' => 'required|email|unique:users',
            'password' => 'required|string|min:8',
            'phone' => 'nullable|string',
        ];
    }
}

Generated Swagger:

{
  "paths": {
    "/api/users": {
      "post": {
        "tags": ["Users"],
        "summary": "Create a new User",
        "security": [{"sanctum": []}],
        "requestBody": {
          "required": true,
          "content": {
            "application/json": {
              "schema": {
                "type": "object",
                "required": ["name", "email", "password"],
                "properties": {
                  "name": {"type": "string", "maxLength": 255},
                  "email": {"type": "string", "format": "email"},
                  "password": {"type": "string", "format": "password", "minLength": 8},
                  "phone": {"type": "string", "format": "phone"}
                }
              }
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Example 2: Inline Validation

Laravel Code:

Route::post('/api/otp/verify', [OtpController::class, 'verify']);

class OtpController extends Controller
{
    public function verify(Request $request)
    {
        $validated = $request->validate([
            'user_id' => 'required|integer|exists:users,id',
            'otp' => 'required|string|digits:6',
            'verified' => 'nullable|boolean',
        ]);
    }
}

Generated Swagger:

{
                "properties": {
                  "user_id": {"type": "integer", "description": "Must exist in users"},
                  "otp": {"type": "string", "pattern": "^[0-9]{6}$", "minLength": 6, "maxLength": 6},
                  "verified": {"type": "boolean"}
  }
}

🚀 Commands

Generate Documentation

php artisan docs:generate

Generates fresh API documentation from your current routes and controllers.

🛠️ Troubleshooting

Documentation not showing?

Make sure you've run:

php artisan docs:generate

Routes not appearing?

Check that routes have the api/ prefix:

'route_filters' => [
    'prefix' => 'api/',
],

404 on /docs?

Clear route cache:

php artisan route:clear
php artisan route:cache

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

☕ Support

If this package helped you, consider buying me a coffee to support development!

Made with ❤️ by Provydon

⭐ Star on GitHub • 🐛 Report Bug • 💡 Request Feature

provydon / docs-generate

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