Spatie Laravel Data

Automatic static OpenAPI documentation for Spatie Laravel Data DTOs.

Overview

Spatie Laravel Data (spatie/laravel-data) is widely used for type-safe Data Transfer Objects (DTOs), request validation, and API resource transformation in Laravel.

Geni provides first-class, opt-in static analysis support for spatie/laravel-data (v3 and v4). When a controller action accepts a Data class or returns one, Geni automatically generates matching OpenAPI schemas without requiring redundant Form Requests or annotations.

Request Injection

When a controller action parameter type-hints a class extending Spatie\LaravelData\Data:

use App\Data\UserData;
use Illuminate\Http\JsonResponse;

class UserController
{
    public function store(UserData $data): JsonResponse
    {
        // ...
    }
}

Geni inspects the UserData class definition:

namespace App\Data;

use Spatie\LaravelData\Attributes\Validation\Email;
use Spatie\LaravelData\Attributes\Validation\Max;
use Spatie\LaravelData\Attributes\Validation\Min;
use Spatie\LaravelData\Attributes\Validation\Required;
use Spatie\LaravelData\Data;
use Spatie\LaravelData\Optional;

class UserData extends Data
{
    public function __construct(
        #[Required]
        #[Min(3)]
        #[Max(50)]
        public string $name,

        #[Required]
        #[Email]
        public string $email,

        public ?AddressData $address = null,

        public Optional|string $bio,
    ) {}
}

Inferred Request Body Schema

Geni automatically infers:

• name: type: string, minLength: 3, maxLength: 50, in required array.
• email: type: string, format: email, in required array.
• address: Nested object schema or $ref: '#/components/schemas/AddressData', not required (default is null).
• bio: type: string, not required (typed as Optional).

Response Transformation

Geni automatically recognizes Data responses across all common usage patterns:

Return Type Hint

public function show(): UserData
{
    return UserData::from($user);
}

When returning UserData::collect(...), Geni documents a 200 response with type: array whose items match the UserData schema.

Supported Validation Attributes

Geni statically parses attributes from Spatie\LaravelData\Attributes\Validation\*:

Spatie Attribute	JSON Schema Property
#[Required]	Added to schema required list
#[Nullable]	Omitted from schema required list
#[Min(n)]	minLength: n (string) or minimum: n (number)
#[Max(n)]	maxLength: n (string) or maximum: n (number)
#[Between(min, max)]	minimum and maximum / minLength and maxLength
#[Email]	format: "email"
#[Url], #[ActiveUrl]	format: "uri"
#[Uuid]	format: "uuid"
#[Regex('/^[a-z]+$/')]	pattern: "^[a-z]+$"
#[DataCollectionOf(ItemData::class)]	Infers item schema for collections

Zero Runtime Dependency

Geni never requires spatie/laravel-data in your production environment. If a project does not use Spatie Data, Geni ignores Data classes with zero runtime impact.