php 23 lines · 5 steps

Enforcing a JSON Accept header in Laravel

A Laravel middleware that rejects clients that won't accept JSON and normalizes the Accept header for the rest.

Explained by highlit
Laravel Beginner middleware content-negotiation http-headers api
1<?php
2 
3namespace App\Http\Middleware;
4 
5use Closure;
6use Illuminate\Http\Request;
7use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
8 
9class EnsureJsonAcceptHeader
10{
11 public function handle(Request $request, Closure $next): Response
12 {
13 if (! $request->accepts(['application/json', 'application/vnd.api+json'])) {
14 return response()->json([
15 'message' => 'This endpoint only serves JSON. Set the Accept header to application/json.',
16 ], Response::HTTP_NOT_ACCEPTABLE);
17 }
18 
19 $request->headers->set('Accept', 'application/json');
20 
21 return $next($request);
22 }
23}
01 / 01
STEP 01

Walkthrough

Space play ←→ step click any line
Three takeaways
  1. 1Middleware lets you guard requests before they reach a controller, centralizing cross-cutting concerns like content negotiation.
  2. 2Rejecting unacceptable requests with 406 Not Acceptable keeps an API honest about what it actually serves.
  3. 3Normalizing the Accept header downstream ensures the rest of the stack behaves consistently regardless of what the client sent.

Related explainers

php 
<?php
 
class NameParser
{

Parsing a full name into components in PHP

string-parsing arrays normalization
Intermediate 8 steps
php 
<?php
 
namespace App\Services\Checkout;
 

Validating coupons with Laravel's Pipeline

pipeline chain of responsibility transactions
Intermediate 7 steps
python 
import time
import uuid
 
from django.utils.deprecation import MiddlewareMixin

Attaching per-request context in Django

middleware request lifecycle multi-tenancy
Intermediate 7 steps
php 
<?php
 
namespace App\Services;
 

How a password strength validator works in PHP

validation regular-expressions data-driven
Intermediate 8 steps
php 
<?php
 
namespace App\Services;
 

Building a cached daily leaderboard in Laravel

caching aggregation eager-loading
Intermediate 9 steps
php 
<?php
 
final class RotatingFileLogger
{

How a rotating file logger works in PHP

logging file-rotation io
Intermediate 9 steps

Share this explainer

Here's the card — post it anywhere.

Enforcing a JSON Accept header in Laravel — share card
Made with highlit — turn any snippet into a walkthrough like this in about a minute.
Explain your code