php 45 lines · 6 steps

How Eloquent observers hook lifecycle events in Laravel

An OrderObserver runs side effects at each stage of a model's life — creating, created, updated, deleting, and restored.

Explained by highlit
Laravel Intermediate observers lifecycle-hooks queues notifications eloquent
1<?php
2 
3namespace App\Observers;
4 
5use App\Models\Order;
6use App\Jobs\GenerateInvoice;
7use App\Notifications\OrderShipped;
8use Illuminate\Support\Str;
9use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Log;
10 
11class OrderObserver
12{
13 public function creating(Order $order): void
14 {
15 $order->reference ??= 'ORD-'.Str::upper(Str::random(10));
16 }
17 
18 public function created(Order $order): void
19 {
20 GenerateInvoice::dispatch($order)->afterCommit();
21 
22 Log::info('Order placed', [
23 'order_id' => $order->id,
24 'total' => $order->total,
25 ]);
26 }
27 
28 public function updated(Order $order): void
29 {
30 if ($order->wasChanged('status') && $order->status === 'shipped') {
31 $order->customer->notify(new OrderShipped($order));
32 }
33 }
34 
35 public function deleting(Order $order): void
36 {
37 $order->items()->delete();
38 $order->payments()->delete();
39 }
40 
41 public function restored(Order $order): void
42 {
43 $order->forceFill(['status' => 'reopened'])->saveQuietly();
44 }
45}
01 / 01
STEP 01

Walkthrough

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Three takeaways
  1. 1Observers centralize model side effects in named methods that Eloquent fires automatically on each lifecycle event.
  2. 2Deferring work with afterCommit and saveQuietly avoids dispatching on rolled-back transactions and prevents recursive event loops.
  3. 3wasChanged lets update logic react only to the specific fields that actually changed.

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