Product Decisions This Supports
- Four-eyes principle enforcement: Implement mandatory approval workflows for sensitive operations (e.g., financial transactions, HR actions, or admin changes) to mitigate risks of unauthorized changes.
- Dynamic approval rules: Enable conditional approval logic (e.g., higher thresholds for large transactions or escalations for high-risk actions) without custom development.
- Multi-role delegation: Support complex approval hierarchies (e.g., 2 admins + 1 manager) for enterprise-grade governance, reducing bottlenecks while maintaining oversight.
- Auditability & compliance: Maintain a tamper-proof audit trail with export capabilities for regulatory requirements (e.g., GDPR, SOX) or internal governance.
- Bulk operations: Streamline approval processes for batch actions (e.g., user onboarding, data migrations) to improve efficiency in high-volume workflows.
- Custom actions beyond CRUD: Extend approval workflows to non-model operations (e.g., API calls, external service triggers) via the
ExecutableRequest contract.
- Self-service delegation: Allow approvers to temporarily delegate authority (e.g., for vacations) with expiry, reducing operational friction.
- Multi-tenancy support: Isolate approval workflows by team/company for SaaS platforms or large organizations with segmented access.
- Seamless integration with Laravel: Leverage existing Eloquent models and events without disrupting existing codebases, lowering adoption risk.
When to Consider This Package
Adopt this package if:
- Your application requires strict approval workflows for critical operations (e.g., financial, HR, admin actions) but lacks a built-in solution.
- You need multi-role or user-specific approvals (e.g., "2 admins + 1 manager" or "only the CFO can approve").
- Approval rules must be dynamic or conditional (e.g., "amount > $50K requires extra approval").
- You require audit trails, delegation, or bulk operations out of the box without custom development.
- Your team uses Laravel/Eloquent and wants to avoid reinventing workflow logic from scratch.
- Compliance or governance demands race-condition-safe, exportable logs for approvals.
Look elsewhere if:
- Your approval workflows are simple (e.g., single-role approvals only) and can be handled with basic Laravel middleware or policies.
- You’re using a non-Laravel framework or need a framework-agnostic solution.
- You require highly customized UI components for approvals (this package focuses on backend logic; you’d need to pair it with a frontend solution like Livewire or Inertia).
- Your team lacks PHP/Laravel expertise to configure or extend the package.
- You need real-time collaboration features (e.g., comments, threaded discussions) during approvals (consider integrating with tools like Slack or custom frontend components).
How to Pitch It (Stakeholders)
For Executives:
"This package solves a critical gap in our governance and compliance toolkit by automating approval workflows—reducing human error, ensuring accountability, and accelerating high-volume processes like user onboarding or financial transactions. With features like multi-role approvals, dynamic rules, and audit trails, we can enforce policies consistently across teams while cutting manual review time by up to 70%. It’s a turnkey solution that scales from small teams to enterprise needs, with zero custom development required."
For Engineering:
"Maker-Checker is a battle-tested Laravel package that handles the heavy lifting of approval workflows—from intercepting Eloquent events to managing complex role/user-based approvals, delegation, and auditing. It integrates seamlessly with our existing codebase via traits or a simple facade, supports custom actions beyond CRUD, and includes a REST API for programmatic control. The package is race-condition-safe, well-documented, and backed by 360+ tests, so we can deploy it with confidence. It’s ideal for projects where we need to enforce the four-eyes principle without building a custom system from scratch."
For Product/Design:
"This tool lets us design approval workflows that adapt to business rules—like escalating high-value requests or requiring specific stakeholders—without relying on manual processes or spreadsheets. The audit trail and export features ensure we meet compliance needs, while bulk operations and delegation improve efficiency. It’s a low-code way to add governance to critical features, like payment processing or content moderation, without sacrificing flexibility."