❌ Bad Practices When Building Laravel APIs

Laravel has grown into one of the most popular PHP frameworks, thanks to its elegant syntax, powerful tools, and developer-friendly ecosystem. But with great power comes great responsibility — and unfortunately, many developers (especially in fast-moving teams) fall into common traps when building APIs.

In this post, I’ll walk you through bad practices in Laravel API development, and what you should be doing instead to ensure scalability, maintainability, and long-term success.

🚫 1. No API Versioning

Bad Practice:

Why it’s bad:

Without versioning, any future changes will break existing clients.

✅ Best Practice:

Always version your APIs.

🚫 2. Mixing Web and API Logic

 Bad Practice:

Writing controllers that serve both web and API responses.

Why it’s bad:

It creates tight coupling, hard-to-test logic, and messy controllers.

✅ Best Practice:

Separate your API logic using dedicated API controllers:

🚫 3. Returning Raw Models

 Bad Practice:

 Returning Eloquent models directly from the controller.

✅ Best Practice:

Use API Resource classes for controlled responses. 

🚫 4. Ignoring Request Validation

 Bad Practice:

 Using raw input from the request without validating.

✅ Best Practice:

Use Form Request classes:

Then in your controller:

🚫 5. Poor Error Handling

 Bad Practice:

 Returning unstructured or default Laravel error pages.

✅ Best Practice:

🚫 6. No Authentication or Using Session-Based Auth

 Bad Practice:

 Using session authentication (Auth::user() without guards).

✅ Best Practice:

Use Sanctum or Passport for stateless API auth:

🚫 7. Business Logic in Controllers

 Bad Practice:

 Cluttering controllers with logic.

✅ Best Practice:

Move complex logic into Service classes, Action classes, or Jobs.

🚫 8. Overfetching or N+1 Queries

 Bad Practice:

✅ Best Practice:

Use eager loading:

🚫 9. Not Using Transformers or Resources

 Bad Practice:

Returning inconsistent data.

✅ Best Practice:

Use JsonResource to format and hide fields.

🚫 10. Ignoring OpenAPI/Swagger Documentation

 Bad Practice:

 No API docs.

✅ Best Practice:

Use packages like

• knuckleswtf/scribe
• DarkaOnLine/L5-Swagger     

💡 Final Thoughts

Building a Laravel API isn’t just about functionality — it’s about maintainability and security. Avoid bad practices to build reliable APIs.

If you found this helpful, feel free to share or comment. Happy coding with Laravel! 🧱✨

Read More