Form Requests & Validation

Static validation rule extraction from Form Requests, Validator::make, and inline validate() calls.

Overview

Geni automatically documents request body schemas by statically analyzing validation rules in your code. You never need to duplicate validation rules in docblock comments.

Supported Validation Sources

Geni inspects three distinct validation sources:

1. Dedicated Form Requests (Recommended)

When a controller action parameter type-hints a class extending Illuminate\Foundation\Http\FormRequest:

public function store(StoreArticleRequest $request)
{
    // ...
}

Geni resolves the StoreArticleRequest class and parses the array returned by its rules() method:

class StoreArticleRequest extends FormRequest
{
    public function rules(): array
    {
        return [
            'title' => ['required', 'string', 'max:120'],
            'body' => ['required', 'string'],
            'status' => ['nullable', Rule::in(['draft', 'published', 'archived'])],
            'tags' => ['array'],
            'tags.*' => ['integer', 'exists:tags,id'],
            'cover_image' => ['nullable', 'image', 'max:2048'],
        ];
    }
}

2. Inline $request->validate()

When validation is performed directly inside the controller method:

public function store(Request $request)
{
    $validated = $request->validate([
        'title' => 'required|string|max:120',
        'category_id' => 'required|integer',
    ]);
}

3. Validator::make()

When using the Validator facade or helper:

public function update(Request $request, Post $post)
{
    $validator = Validator::make($request->all(), [
        'title' => 'required|string',
    ]);
}

Validation Rule Mapping Table

Laravel Rule	OpenAPI JSON Schema Property
required	Added to schema required array
nullable	Omitted from required; supports type: [type, "null"]
string, alpha, alpha_dash	type: "string"
integer, numeric, digits	type: "integer" or type: "number"
boolean	type: "boolean"
array	type: "array"
date, date_format:Y-m-d	type: "string", format: "date"
date_format:Y-m-d H:i:s	type: "string", format: "date-time"
email	type: "string", format: "email"
url, active_url	type: "string", format: "uri"
uuid	type: "string", format: "uuid"
min:val	minLength: val (string) or minimum: val (numeric)
max:val	maxLength: val (string) or maximum: val (numeric)
between:min,max	minLength / maxLength or minimum / maximum
in:a,b,c / Rule::in(...)	enum: ["a", "b", "c"]
file, image, mimes:...	format: "binary"; switches request to multipart/form-data
confirmed	Automatically generates sibling {field}_confirmation property

Multipart Form Data Detection

When Geni detects a file, image, or mimes rule on any field in a request, it automatically sets the request body media type to multipart/form-data instead of application/json.