Microplate Laravel Package

Product Decisions This Supports

• Feature scoping for plate-based workflows. The package models well coordinates and plate collections (CoordinateSystem*Well, MicroplateSet*), which sit underneath any feature involving plate maps, well addressing, assay layouts, hit-picking, or sample tracking. This is a genuine domain primitive rather than generic utility code — it shortens estimation for lab-facing features.
• Build vs. buy. Coordinate/plate logic is easy to hand-roll badly (off-by-one row/column conventions, A1 vs. 1-indexed, 96 vs. 384 well layouts). Adopting a maintained package removes a class of correctness bugs from our critical path and lets the team spend effort on differentiation (workflow, integrations, UX) instead.
• Roadmap input. v6.3.0 adding POSITIONS_COUNT and PLATE_COUNT constants signals the maintainer is investing in ergonomics and standardizing across multiple plate/coordinate variants. That supports planning for new plate formats and instrument types as a config-level exercise rather than a code change — useful when scoping support for additional assay plate types or vendor hardware.
• Prioritization signal. Because the release is purely additive (no breaking changes, no deprecations), we can slot it into a routine dependency bump rather than a scheduled migration — no roadmap disruption, no need to sequence it against other work.
• Reduced magic-number debt. These constants let product/engineering express "a 384-well plate has 384 positions" declaratively. This matters for validation rules, UI pagination of plate grids, and import/export templates — small, but it removes hardcoded assumptions that tend to drift.

When to Consider This Package

Adopt when:

• We need typed, testable addressing of wells and plates (single plates and grouped plate sets) in a Laravel/PHP service.
• We are building LIMS, ELN, assay-design, screening, or QC features where sample-to-well mapping must be correct and auditable.
• The domain has a bounded, standardized set of plate formats — which the MicroplateSet* variants and their fixed PLATE_COUNT imply.
• We want a Laravel-native dependency that fits existing conventions rather than bolting on a foreign SDK.

Look elsewhere when:

• Requirements are real-time instrument control or high-throughput data acquisition — those typically live in vendor SDKs, Python, or C++, with PHP only receiving results.
• We need arbitrary/irregular geometry (custom tiles, non-standard carriers, 3D positions) beyond named plate formats.
• The stack isn't PHP/Laravel, or we can't accept the maintenance and upgrade cadence of an external dependency for something this close to the data model.
• Documentation and test coverage are thin — verify this before commitment, since correctness here is a regulatory and data-integrity concern.

Due diligence before adoption: pin the version, confirm PHP/Laravel compatibility, review test coverage of the coordinate mapping, and check how breaking changes have historically been handled (the v6 major suggests a stable API but implies prior churn).

How to Pitch It (Stakeholders)

For executives: This is a small, mature (v6.x) Laravel package that gives us a correct, reusable foundation for anything involving lab plates and wells — sample tracking, assay setup, results mapping. The business case is risk reduction: errors in well addressing mean mislabeled samples and unreliable results, which is expensive and reputationally damaging in a lab context. Buying this rather than building it gets us to new plate formats and instrument types faster, and this release is additive with no migration cost.

For engineering: Adopt as the source of truth for well/plate coordinates instead of local helper functions. v6.3.0 is a non-breaking, additive release that introduces POSITIONS_COUNT and PLATE_COUNT constants across the coordinate-system and microplate-set classes — use them in validation, grid rendering, and import/export rather than hardcoded numbers. No API changes to absorb; safe to take in a routine dependency bump. Flag any place we currently duplicate this logic so we can consolidate deliberately rather than opportunistically.