Laravel Console Toolkit is a package that makes it even easier to write maintainable and expressive Artisan commands, with argument/option casting, validation, and autoAsk. Also, it lets you define your arguments/options with simple properties and attributes for better ide support and static analysis. And all this with a single trait.

Features

Here are some amazing features of Laravel Console Toolkit:

• Laravel Features: Supports everything laravel can do
• Attribute Syntax: Use PHP-Attributes to automatically define your inputs based on types
• Casting: Automatically cast your inputs to Enums, Models, Objects, or anything you want
• Validation: Use the Laravel Validator to validate the inputs from the console
• Auto Ask If the user provides an invalid value toolkit will ask again for a valid value without the need to run the command again
• Negatable Options: Options can be specified as opposites: –dry or –no-dry
• Option required Value: Options can have required values

Installation

You can install the package via composer by running this command:

composer require thettler/laravel-console-toolkit

Usage

A Basic Command

To use the Toolkit you simply need to add the UsesConsoleToolkit trait inside your command. Then add the Thettler\LaravelConsoleToolkit\Attributes\ArtisanCommand to the class to specify the name and other things like description, help, and so on.

The ArtisanCommand requires the name parameter to be set. This will be the name of the Command which you can use to call it from the command line.

<?php
namespace App\Console\Commands;

use Illuminate\Console\Command;
use Thettler\LaravelConsoleToolkit\Concerns\UsesConsoleToolkit;

#[ArtisanCommand(
    name: 'basic',
)]
class BasicCommand extends Command
{
    use UsesConsoleToolkit;
    
    public function handle()
    {
    }
}

And call it like:

php artisan basic

Casts

Cast can be specified on Arguments and Options. You can either provide a class string of a caster to use or an instance of the caster. This is helpful to configure the caster via the constructor.

This package also offers:

• Model Cast
• Enum Cast
• Array Cast
• Custom Casts

Validation

You can also employ the normal laravel validation rules to validate the input.

    #[Argument(
        validation: ['max:5']
    )]
    protected string $validated;

If you want custom messages you need to use the Validation object

    #[Argument(
        validation: new \Thettler\LaravelConsoleToolkit\Transfers\Validation(
            rules: ['max:5']
            messages: [
                'max' => 'This is way to much!'
            ]   
        )
    )]
    protected string $validated;

Auto Ask

By default, Auto Ask is enabled. Every time a command is called with an input that fails validation or is required but not specified the command automatically asks the user to enter a (new) value. If the type is an enum it will give the user choice with all the enum values.

If you want to disable this behavior you can do it locally:

    #[Argument(
        autoAsk: false
    )]
    protected string $dontAsk;

or globally in your AppServiceProvider:

\Thettler\LaravelConsoleToolkit\ConsoleToolkit::enableAutoAsk(false);

This package has many other features with code examples. If you want to explore more about this package you can visit its complete documentation and source code on Github.