How to organize your routing in a large Laravel project

Imagine a Laravel project with 100+ routes, including separate modules for Guest, User, Administrator, etc. Do you really want to write everything in one file? So how do you group them and add a prefix to the URL? Let’s see what methods are available

1. Separate WEB and API routing

This is simple, because Laravel has already done it for you. There are the following two files:

routes/web.php

routes/api.php

Therefore, if your project has both a front-end page and an API (the more the usage scenario (Laiyueguang), please put the API routing in api.php.

For example, if you have the /users page and the /api/users/ endpoint, write them in their own routing files to avoid confusion caused by the same name appearing in the same file.

But I recently saw a counterexample from the official Laravel project. In Laravel Horizon, Taylor only has API routing, but he did not write it separately. He still wrote it in routes/web.php:

Another example proves that Laravel is still very personal ation, even Taylor himself did not follow the standards 100%.

2. Group the routes/web.php file into a structured structure

The following example is also from Laravel’s official documentation:

Route::middleware(['first', 'second'])->group(function () {
    Route::get('/', function () {
        // 使用 first 和 second 中间件
    });
    Route::get('user/profile', function () {
        // 使用 first 和 second 中间件
    });
});

The most basic The usage is to include different routing groups in different middleware. For example, you want one group to be restricted by the auth middleware by default, another group to be restricted by a separate admin custom middleware, etc.

In this way, you can also use route grouping methods such as name and prefix. Again, the example is given in the official documentation:

Route::prefix('admin')->group(function () {
    Route::get('users', function () {
        // 匹配 URL 「/admin/users」
    });
});
Route::name('admin.')->group(function () {
    Route::get('users', function () {
        // 路由名为 「admin.users」...
    })->name('users');
});

Also, if you want to add all middleware name prefixes to a group, it's easier to understand by putting them in an array:

// 而不是这样做： 
Route::name('admin.')->prefix('admin')->middleware('admin')->group(function () {
    // ...
});
// 可以使用数组
Route::group([
    'name' => 'admin.', 
    'prefix' => 'admin', 
    'middleware' => 'auth'
], function () {
    // ...
});

Let's combine this into a real example with three route groups:

The "guest" group with /front/XXXXX URL and no middleware

with /user/ "Users" group with XXXXX URL and auth middleware

"Administrator" group with /admin/XXXXX URL and custom admin middleware

Here's how to group everything into routes / A method in the web.php file:

Route::group([
    'name' => 'admin.',
    'prefix' => 'admin',
    'middleware' => 'admin'
], function () {
    // URL链接：/admin/users
    // 路由名称：admin.users
    Route::get('users', function () {
        return 'Admin: user list';
    })->name('users');
});
Route::group([
    'name' => 'user.',
    'prefix' => 'user',
    'middleware' => 'auth'
], function () {
    // URL链接：/user/profile
    // 路由名称：user.profile
    Route::get('profile', function () {
        return 'User profile';
    })->name('profile');
});
Route::group([
    'name' => 'front.',
    'prefix' => 'front'
], function () {
    // 这里没有中间件
    // URL链接：/front/about-us
    // 路由名称：front.about
    Route::get('about-us', function () {
        return 'About us page';
    })->name('about');
});

3. Group controllers using namespaces

In the above example, we are not using controls processor, just returned static text as an example. Let's add a controller and get a little fancy — we'll structure them into folders in their own different namespaces, like this:

Then we can Use them in routing files:

Route::group([
    'name' => 'front.',
    'prefix' => 'front'
], function () {
    Route::get('about-us', 'Front.boutController@index')->name('about');
});

But what if in this group we have many controllers? Should we keep adding Front.omeController? of course not. You can also pass a namespace as one of the parameters.

Route::group([
    'name' => 'front.',
    'prefix' => 'front',
    'namespace' => 'Front',
], function () {
    Route::get('about-us', 'AboutController@index')->name('about');
    Route::get('contact', 'ContactController@index')->name('contact');
});

4. Group nested group

The above situation is divided into 3 groups. In fact, this is simplified. The structure of the actual project is slightly different. – are two groups: front and auth. Then within auth, there are two subgroups: user and admin. To do this, we can create subgroups in routes/web.php and assign different middlewares/prefixes etc.

Route::group([
    'middleware' => 'auth',
], function() {
    Route::group([
        'name' => 'admin.',
        'prefix' => 'admin',
        'middleware' => 'admin'
    ], function () {
        // URL: /admin/users
        // Route name: admin.users
        Route::get('users', 'UserController@index')->name('users');
    });
    Route::group([
        'name' => 'user.',
        'prefix' => 'user',
    ], function () {
        // URL: /user/profile
        // Route name: user.profile
        Route::get('profile', 'ProfileController@index')->name('profile');
    });
});

We can even have multiple levels of nesting, which is an example of an open source project. Akaunting:

Route::group(['middleware' => 'language'], function () {
    Route::group(['middleware' => 'auth'], function () {
        Route::group(['prefix' => 'uploads'], function () {
            Route::get('{id}', 'Common.ploads@get');
            Route::get('{id}/show', 'Common.ploads@show');
            Route::get('{id}/download', 'Common.ploads@download');
        });
        Route::group(['middleware' => 'permission:read-admin-panel'], function () {
            Route::group(['prefix' => 'wizard'], function () {
                Route::get('/', 'Wizard.ompanies@edit')->name('wizard.index');
        // ...

Another example comes from another popular Laravel CRM called Monica:

Route::middleware(['auth', 'verified', 'mfa'])->group(function () {
    Route::name('dashboard.')->group(function () {
        Route::get('/dashboard', 'DashboardController@index')->name('index');
        Route::get('/dashboard/calls', 'DashboardController@calls');
        Route::get('/dashboard/notes', 'DashboardController@notes');
        Route::get('/dashboard/debts', 'DashboardController@debts');
        Route::get('/dashboard/tasks', 'DashboardController@tasks');
        Route::post('/dashboard/setTab', 'DashboardController@setTab');
    });

5. Global Settings in RouteServiceProvider

There is a file that serves all routing settings – app/Providers/RouteServiceProvider.php. It has a map() method that binds two routing files – web and API:

    public function map()
    {
        $this->mapApiRoutes();
        $this->mapWebRoutes();
    }
    protected function mapWebRoutes()
    {
        Route::middleware('web')
             ->namespace($this->namespace)
             ->group(base_path('routes/web.php'));
    }
    protected function mapApiRoutes()
    {
        Route::prefix('api')
             ->middleware('api')
             ->namespace($this->namespace)
             ->group(base_path('routes/api.php'));
    }

Did you notice that in the method And middleware, namespace and prefix? This is where you can set global configurations for the entire file, so you don't have to repeat these settings for every routing group in the file.

It is mainly used for API routing, as their settings are usually the same, as shown below:

protected function mapApiRoutes()
{
    Route::group([
        'middleware' => ['api'],
        'namespace' => $this->namespace,
        'prefix' => 'api/v1',
    ], function ($router) {
        require base_path('routes/api.php');
    });
}

The above method will prefix all API URLs with api/v1/ at the beginning.

6. Grouping into more files – is it worth it?

If you have a large number of routes and want to group them into separate files, then you can use the same file mentioned in the previous section – app/Providers/RouteServiceProvider.php. If you look closely at its map() method, you'll see the comment position at the end:

public function map()
{
    $this->mapApiRoutes();
    $this->mapWebRoutes();
    //
}

If you like, you can interpret this as an "invitation" to add more files. So you can create another method inside this file like mapAdminRoutes() and then add it to the map() method and your file will be automatically registered and loaded.

But, personally, I don't see any advantage to this approach, and I don't see it done very often. It would bring more routing separation, but sometimes you can get lost in those files and not sure where to look for a specific route.

7. Find a specific route using the Artisan route:list command

Speaking of larger routes and getting lost in there, we have an Artisan command that can help locate a certain route.

You probably know that php artisan route:list will display all the routes in your project

but you know there are more filtering capabilities to find what you want Want something? Just add –method, or –name, or –path with arguments.

Filter by method – GET, POST, etc.:

Filter by name or URL part:

Recommended tutorial: "Laravel"

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