Model Explorer for Laravel

A developer tool for Laravel that gives you a browsable UI to explore your Eloquent models — their attributes, casts, relations, scopes, traits, and live data — without reading code.

Zero setup beyond Composer install. No vendor:publish, no frontend tooling required in your application.

Requirements

• PHP 8.3+
• Laravel 11, 12, or 13

Features

• Model list — searchable grid of all discovered Eloquent models
• Model detail — DB columns, casts, fillable/hidden/guarded, relations with type badges and foreign keys, scopes with source snippets, traits, and accessor snippets
• Record lookup — find any record by primary key or unique field; browse raw attributes, lazy-loaded accessor values, and expandable relations with drill-down navigation and breadcrumb trail
• Relationship graph — interactive force-directed SVG graph of all model relationships

Installation

composer require --dev onelearningcommunity/laravel-model-explorer

The package auto-registers via Laravel's package discovery — no additional setup required.

Usage

Visit /_model-explorer in your application. In local environments, access is granted by default.

Authorization

Access is controlled by the viewModelExplorer gate, which defaults to allowing access in local environments only. Override it in your AuthServiceProvider to control access elsewhere:

Gate::define('viewModelExplorer', function (User $user): bool {
    return $user->isAdmin();
});

To disable the explorer entirely regardless of the gate, set the environment variable:

MODEL_EXPLORER_ENABLED=false

Configuration

Publish the config file to customise behaviour:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag="model-explorer-config"

return [
    // Set to false to disable entirely (e.g. force off in production regardless of gate)
    'enabled' => env('MODEL_EXPLORER_ENABLED', true),

    // URL prefix for all Model Explorer routes
    'path' => env('MODEL_EXPLORER_PATH', '_model-explorer'),

    // Middleware applied to all routes ('web' is required)
    'middleware' => ['web'],

    // Directories scanned for Eloquent models (add more for DDD layouts, packages, etc.)
    // Keys are the root namespace, values are absolute directory paths.
    'model_paths' => [
        'App'             => app_path(),
        // 'Domain\\Billing' => base_path('src/Billing'),
    ],

    // Model classes matching these patterns are hidden, even inside a scanned path.
    // Entries match the FQCN and may use `*` as a wildcard (leading `\` is ignored).
    'excluded_models' => [
        // 'Laravel\\Telescope\\*',
        // 'App\\Models\\Internal\\AuditLog',
    ],

    // Traits whose FQN begins with these prefixes will be hidden in the UI
    'excluded_trait_prefixes' => [
        'Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Concerns\\',
        'Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\HasCollection',
        'Illuminate\Support\Traits\\',
    ],

    // Related records shown per page when drilling into a to-many relation,
    // and the cap on collection-returning accessor values.
    'per_page' => env('MODEL_EXPLORER_PER_PAGE', 15),

    // Cache model discovery and inspection results (recommended for large apps).
    // Disabled by default so model changes appear immediately during development.
    'cache' => [
        'enabled' => env('MODEL_EXPLORER_CACHE', false),
        'store'   => env('MODEL_EXPLORER_CACHE_STORE'),   // null = default store
        'ttl'     => env('MODEL_EXPLORER_CACHE_TTL'),     // seconds; null = forever
    ],
];

Caching

For apps with many models, the filesystem scanning and reflection behind the model
list, detail, and graph views can be enabled for caching via MODEL_EXPLORER_CACHE=true.
Model detail pages auto-refresh when the model file changes; the model list and graph
are cached until the TTL expires or you clear them manually:

php artisan model-explorer:clear

AI Model Introspection (MCP)

Model Explorer ships a local laravel/mcp server,
model-explorer, that lets AI coding agents introspect your Eloquent models without
scanning source. Register it in your AI client:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "model-explorer": {
      "command": "php",
      "args": ["artisan", "mcp:start", "model-explorer"]
    }
  }
}

Tools: list-models, inspect-model (opt-in sections via include),
relationship-graph, find-model (filter by trait/extends/relatesTo/hasColumn),
and model-source. If you use Laravel Boost,
boost:install automatically advertises these tools to your agent.

The tools read live by default so an agent never sees stale structure mid-development.
Set MODEL_EXPLORER_MCP_CACHE=true to trade freshness for speed on very large model
sets, or MODEL_EXPLORER_MCP=false to disable the server entirely.

Security

Model Explorer for Laravel is intended for development use. The viewModelExplorer gate should prevent access in production environments.

All record reads are wrapped in a rolled-back transaction with Model::withoutEvents() to prevent accidental writes from observers or model events. Note that non-database side effects from accessor methods (HTTP calls, cache writes, queue pushes) are not prevented.

Changelog

Please see CHANGELOG for more information on what has changed recently.

License

The MIT License (MIT). Please see License File for more information.