Deep Copy Laravel Package

Product Decisions This Supports

• Feature development: Enables safe duplication of complex object graphs (e.g., CMS content duplication, e-commerce order cloning, or stateful workflow replication) without manual __clone() implementation or circular reference errors
• Roadmap prioritization: Reduces engineering effort for features requiring object cloning, allowing teams to focus on business logic instead of low-level duplication mechanics
• Build vs buy decision: Clear buy case – building a reliable deep copy solution handling cycles, Doctrine proxies, and custom filters would require 3-5 developer weeks of error-prone work; this package is battle-tested with 8.8K+ stars and 1.13.4 maturity
• Use cases: Doctrine entity cloning (with ID reset/collection handling), test data generation (isolating mock objects), audit trail creation (snapshotting complex states), and stateful service duplication

When to Consider This Package

• Adopt when:
  • You need to clone objects with circular references or complex nested relationships
  • Working with Doctrine ORM (requires specialized filters for proxies/collections)
  • Customizable cloning is needed (e.g., reset IDs, skip specific properties, or transform values during copy)
  • Your team lacks bandwidth to maintain a custom deep-copy implementation
• Look elsewhere when:
  • Only shallow copies are required (use PHP's native clone keyword)
  • Object structures are trivially simple with no references/cycles
  • Running on unsupported PHP versions (<7.1; though current releases support up to 8.4)
  • The project has zero Composer dependency tolerance (though it's a tiny 100KB dependency)

How to Pitch It (Stakeholders)

"DeepCopy is a battle-tested, zero-configuration solution for safely duplicating complex objects – handling circular references, Doctrine proxies, and custom cloning rules out of the box. It eliminates weeks of engineering effort and risk from building/maintaining custom cloning logic, while ensuring data integrity for critical features like content duplication and audit trails. With 8.8K+ GitHub stars, active maintenance, and MIT licensing, it's the industry-standard choice that accelerates delivery of cloning-dependent features without operational overhead."