- What is Laravel Blanket and what problem does it solve?
- Laravel Blanket is a developer tool that hooks Laravel's outbound HTTP client events, saves each request and response to your database, and renders them in a Blade dashboard. It is effectively a narrow, HTTP-client-only slice of Telescope, aimed at debugging third-party API integrations such as payments, KYC, logistics, or notification providers. It is diagnostic tooling rather than a business-logic package, so it belongs in development and staging environments, not on the runtime request path of production.
- How do I install ahmadwaleed/laravel-blanket?
- Install it as a dev dependency with composer require --dev ahmadwaleed/laravel-blanket; the service provider is auto-discovered. Then publish the config and migration via the package's vendor:publish tag and run php artisan migrate to create the requests table. After that you should protect the dashboard route behind a Gate and an environment check before opening it, since the dashboard exposes captured payloads.
- Does Laravel Blanket work with Laravel 9, 10, or 11?
- The last tagged release dates to September 2021, which predates Laravel 9, 10, and 11, so expect illuminate/* version constraint conflicts when installing on a current stack. In practice you will likely need to widen the constraints in a fork and verify the Illuminate\Http\Client\Events surface it listens on is still stable on your target version. Test against your actual Laravel and PHP matrix in CI and budget for the fork up front rather than discovering it mid-pilot.
- Does Laravel Blanket redact Authorization headers and API keys?
- Blanket stores outbound headers and payloads, which means Authorization tokens, API keys, and PII can land in your database unless redaction is configured. Do not assume redaction is on by default given the package's age and lack of maintenance; read the published config and confirm the behaviour yourself. For any service with data-handling obligations, add central redaction logic before enabling capture, and treat captured rows as sensitive data for retention and access purposes.
- How do I protect the Blanket dashboard in production?
- The dashboard is a data-exfiltration surface if it is reachable, so wrap its routes in a Gate and add an explicit environment check rather than relying on the route being unguessable. The cleanest approach is to keep the package as a --dev dependency excluded from production builds entirely. If it must exist in a shared environment, restrict it to a named operator group, log access, and review the configuration on a schedule.
- Is Laravel Blanket a replacement for Laravel Telescope or Clockwork?
- Not really. Modern Telescope already records HTTP client requests, so Blanket mainly competes on having a dedicated, simpler UI for outbound calls. Adopting it means a second data store and a second dependency alongside your existing debugging tool. Run both against the same traffic during a spike; if the output is close enough, skip Blanket and avoid the extra risk.
- How do I prune old records captured by Laravel Blanket?
- Every captured outbound call is a database write, so the table grows quickly in high-egress services and dashboard queries degrade as volume rises. Check whether the package ships a pruning command or model that supports chronological deletion, and if not, add your own scheduled cleanup or a model:prune implementation. In busy applications also consider sampling capture and moving the table to a separate connection so it never competes with application data.
- Does capturing HTTP client requests slow down my Laravel app?
- Yes, there is real overhead: each captured call adds a synchronous database insert on the request path plus storage growth that slows the dashboard over time. The listener also runs inside the outbound call, so you should confirm whether a capture failure fails open or closed before trusting it near critical integrations. Sample aggressively, cap retention, and keep the package out of production to make the cost irrelevant.
- How do I uninstall Laravel Blanket cleanly?
- Lock-in is effectively zero: it is a dev-only dependency with its own migration and config and no coupling to your application code. Removal is composer remove ahmadwaleed/laravel-blanket, delete the published config, and drop the requests table with a rollback or a dedicated migration. That low switching cost is the strongest argument for a short, time-boxed pilot rather than a lengthy evaluation.
- Is laravel-blanket actively maintained and safe to rely on?
- Treat it as unmaintained: the last release was in 2021, there is no vendor support or SLA, and the small star count reflects a narrow user base. If you adopt it, fork it to an internal repository, assign a named owner and review date, and run CI against your supported Laravel releases so compatibility patches are routine rather than reactive. Document it as developer tooling, keep it out of production builds, and have a removal plan ready if the fork cost outweighs the debugging benefit.