Stripe Billing Laravel Laravel Package

Getting Started

v17.0.0 is a framework-compatibility major, not a feature release. The only documented change is Laravel 12 support, which means the day-one job is confirming your app and the package agree on a platform before you touch any application code.

Minimum steps:

1. Check the platform matrix first. v17 targets Laravel 12, which requires PHP 8.2+. If your app is still on Laravel 10/11 or PHP 8.1, stay on the previous major — do not force the constraint. Run composer why-not vendor/package ^17.0 to see exactly which constraint is blocking you.
2. Read the upgrade guide, not just the release notes. A v16 → v17 jump is a major bump. Even when the headline is "Laravel 12 support," majors are where maintainers batch up deprecations, drop PHP versions, rename config keys, and remove previously-deprecated methods. Grep the changelog for BREAKING, deprecated, removed, and renamed between your installed version and 17.0.0.
3. Republish and diff config. php artisan vendor:publish --tag=config --force into a temp location, then diff against your existing config/*.php. Silent config key renames are the most common cause of "it installed fine but behaves differently."
4. Run the package's own migrations check if it ships any: php artisan migrate --pretend before migrate on anything shared.

Where to look first: the package's UPGRADE.md / CHANGELOG.md for the v16→v17 delta, then composer.json for the exact illuminate/* and php constraints. Those two files answer 90% of "will this work in my app."

First use case: run your existing test suite unchanged against v17 on a branch. If it's green, the upgrade is almost certainly a composer.json bump plus a config diff. If it's red, the failures usually cluster around one or two renamed methods — fix those, then re-run. Don't refactor anything else in the same PR; keep the upgrade diff reviewable.

Implementation Patterns

Upgrade in an isolated branch with a constraint bump only.

composer require vendor/package:^17.0 --with-all-dependencies

Use -W (--with-all-dependencies) — without it Composer will happily hold transitive illuminate/support at v11 and you'll get a package that "installed" but resolves against the wrong framework internals. Commit the lockfile diff separately from any code changes so a bad upgrade is a one-command revert.

Gate the major by environment during rollout. If you maintain multiple apps on different Laravel versions (common in agencies), pin per-app rather than globally:

"require": { "vendor/package": "^17.0" }

and keep the older app on ^16.0. Because this is a compatibility major rather than a feature major, the two versions usually coexist fine in a monorepo — just don't share a lockfile across them.

Wrap the package behind your own thin adapter. For a package that has now shipped 17 majors, the cheapest long-term insurance is a single application-level service or facade that your code calls, with the package bound underneath. When v18 lands you change one binding instead of grepping 40 call sites. This pays for itself precisely because these majors arrive annually alongside Laravel releases.

Lean on the container and config, not static calls. Resolve the package's service from the container in constructors so it's swappable in tests, and drive behaviour from config/ rather than hardcoding arguments at call sites. This is what makes the next major a config diff instead of a code rewrite.

Use the package's test doubles in your own suite. Most mature Laravel packages ship a fake or an in-memory driver. Bind that in tests/TestCase.php so your feature tests don't hit real external services, then keep a small number of integration tests that exercise the real driver on a schedule.

Integration tip — event-driven, not polled. Where the package exposes lifecycle events, subscribe to them in a dedicated listener rather than wrapping calls in try/catch and inspecting return values. Event hooks are far more stable across majors than method signatures.

Schedule the upgrade, don't react to it. Given the release cadence, put "review package majors" on the calendar each time a new Laravel major ships. v17 existing at all means the maintainer is actively tracking the framework — that's a positive signal, and it also means v18 will arrive on a predictable schedule.

Gotchas and Tips

"Updated for Laravel 12" does not mean "no breaking changes." It's a major version number. Treat the absence of detailed notes as a reason to read the diff, not as a guarantee of a drop-in upgrade. If the changelog is genuinely one line, check the compare view on the repo between your tag and v17.0.0.

PHP version is the usual real blocker. Laravel 12 requires PHP 8.2+, and packages often bump their own floor higher than the framework's. Confirm your CI matrix and any long-lived production images match before you start — discovering a PHP constraint in staging after a green local run is the classic version of this mistake.

Composer's solver will lie to you about success. A package can install while its illuminate/* requirements resolve to a version your app doesn't actually run. After installing, verify with composer show vendor/package and composer show illuminate/support and confirm the versions line up. Watch for replace/provide blocks in the package's composer.json — they change how conflicts surface.

Clear caches after any major bump. php artisan config:clear && php artisan cache:clear && composer dump-autoload. Stale config caches masking a renamed key is the single most common "the upgrade broke it" false alarm.

Deprecations arrive before removals. If v16 emitted deprecation notices you ignored, v17 is the plausible place they became errors. Search your logs for deprecation warnings on the old version before upgrading — that's your pre-flight checklist for what will break.

Test against the framework matrix, not just your app. If you maintain internal packages that depend on this one, add a CI job per Laravel major. Compatibility majors are exactly where a transitive dependency pins you to an old framework.

Extension points survive majors better than inheritance. If the package offers contracts/interfaces, implement those rather than extending concrete classes. Concrete classes are the first thing to change when a maintainer does framework housekeeping.

Debugging tip: when behaviour changes with no obvious cause, git diff the package's src/ between the two tags inside vendor/. It's fast, and it tells you whether the change is a genuine API shift or an incidental refactor. Combine with php artisan about to confirm the framework version your app actually booted.

Pin with a caret, review with intent. ^17.0 is right for this kind of package — you want patches and minors automatically, but you want to read the notes before 18.0. Avoid * or dev-main: with a maintainer shipping annual majors, unreviewed updates are how you get a surprise breaking change on a Friday.