Relationships Laravel Package

Getting Started

Stillat Relationships is an Eloquent relationship helper; reach for it when you need higher-level relationship operations such as reconciling a one-to-many collection without hand-written diff logic. Install with Composer (composer require stillat/relationships) and confirm the service provider is auto-discovered; if the README requires publishing config or adding a trait to models, do that before using sync helpers. Look first at the one-to-many sync documentation and tests, because v2.4.0 specifically fixes one-to-many syncing. A good first use case is a Team hasMany Members or Post hasMany Comments list where the UI submits the desired child IDs: wrap the package sync in a transaction, refresh the relation, and assert foreign keys in a feature test. Upgrade to ^2.4 if one-to-many sync is part of your workflow.

Implementation Patterns

• Keep normal Eloquent relationship definitions as the source of truth; use the package for higher-level associate/dissociate/sync operations.
• Put sync calls in an action or service class: authorize, validate IDs, open a transaction, sync, refresh the relation, then return the model.
• Use it for ordered child collections; if order matters, update position columns after syncing and reload the relationship.
• Use associate/dissociate for single-parent changes; for many-to-many, prefer Laravel’s native sync unless the package wrapper gives you needed consistency.
• Lock parent or child rows when concurrent requests can sync the same collection; pair with database transactions, foreign keys, and unique constraints.
• Test with RefreshDatabase: no-op sync, add, remove, and mixed changes. Assert child foreign keys, absence of detached rows, and relation counts using factories and assertDatabaseHas.

Gotchas and Tips

• v2.4.0 is a bugfix release for one-to-many syncing; pin >=2.4.0 and re-test any custom workaround you built for the old behavior.
• Confirm sync semantics in the docs: does it detach, null the foreign key, or delete children? Soft deletes and global scopes can hide children from sync calculations.
• Mass sync may bypass model events and observers; if you rely on auditing or cascade side effects, dispatch those manually or sync individually.
• Watch foreign key constraints, nullable foreign keys, morph types, and composite keys; add explicit tests for these cases.
• If the package publishes config, run php artisan config:clear after changes. Debug with toSql, DB::listen, assertDatabaseHas, and withoutGlobalScopes to reveal hidden rows.
• Keep the Composer constraint at ^2.4; prefer extending via your own action classes around package calls rather than editing vendor code.