Laravel E2E Routes Laravel Package

Getting Started

• Confirm what you actually installed before reading any docs: composer show vendor/package for the version, Laravel/PHP constraints, and whether the tag is a real 1.0.0 or a dev- branch alias. On a "v1.0.0 — Initial release," the tag is a promise, not evidence.
• Read in this order: README install block → the package's ServiceProvider (what is bound, what is auto-discovered, what is publishable) → config/*.php (the real public API surface) → migrations/routes/views → tests/ (the best documentation a v1.0.0 has).
• Publish only what you intend to own, and use tags so you don't drag in scaffolding:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Vendor\Package\PackageServiceProvider" --tag=config

• Verify discovery before you debug anything else:

php artisan about
php artisan package:discover --ansi
php artisan config:clear

• First use case: pick the single smallest thing the package does — one repository call, one facade call, one Blade component — and prove it end-to-end in a feature test. Tinker is for exploring, not for confirming the integration.

Implementation Patterns

• Resolve from the container, never new the class. At v1.x, the concrete class name is the most likely thing to change:

public function __construct(private Vendor\Package\Contracts\Client $client) {}

• Keep your binding and package-specific configuration in a dedicated application provider, so an upgrade touches one file:

// app/Providers/PackageServiceProvider.php
public function register(): void
{
    $this->app->when(ReportGenerator::class)
        ->needs(Client::class)
        ->give(fn () => new Client(config('services.package.key')));
}

• Prefer config/services.php (env-backed) over editing the published package config for credentials, so config:cache in deploy stays predictable. Leave the published file for behavioural defaults you want to override explicitly.
• Wrap thin: one adapter class per package capability (App\Support\Billing) that your app depends on instead of the vendor namespace. Replacing the dependency then becomes a one-file change.
• Testing: bind a fake rather than reaching the network. Use the package's own fake if shipped; otherwise bind an interface plus Http::fake():

$this->app->instance(Client::class, new FakeClient());

• If the package ships jobs or scheduled work, give them their own queue connection via config, so a slow third-party API can't back up your default queue.
• Put the first production integration behind a feature flag and decorate the client with a logging decorator for the first week — you want a record of calls before you have an opinion about them.

Gotchas and Tips

• v1.0.0 means "first public contract," not "stable." Pin tightly ("vendor/package": "1.0.*") until you've read a 1.1 changelog; pre-2.0 semver permits renames and signature changes.
• Auto-discovery caches bite after every composer update: run php artisan package:discover locally, and in deploy run composer install --no-dev then config:cache → route:cache → view:cache in that order.
• Published config drifts. Treat the published file as yours, diff it against vendor/.../config/*.php before each minor bump, and commit the diff deliberately.
• Defaults are dev-friendly, not prod-friendly. Grep the source for timeout, retry, debug, log_payload, sandbox, and base URLs — these are the values that fail in production at 3am.
• Migrations: distinguish loadMigrationsFrom (package-owned, never edit) from published migrations (yours, own them). Mixing the two is the classic v1 upgrade wound.
• Debugging blind: dump the actual container resolution (app(Vendor\Package\Client::class)) to see the real concrete class, and log inside your decorator. v1 packages rarely log usefully on their own.
• Check extension points before considering a fork: events dispatched, Macroable, an injectable HTTP client/transport, or an interface resolved from config. If none exist and you need customisation, open an upstream issue early — private forks become maintenance debt fast.
• If it ships a facade, don't lean on Facade::shouldReceive() to make tests pass — it hides binding errors that will surface in production. Use constructor injection in app code and reserve the facade for views and throwaway scripts.