Upgrade

Changed

• Target Laravel 12 exclusively; Laravel 11 and earlier are no longer supported on this major line
• Raise the minimum PHP version to 8.2
• Replace the illuminate/container dependency with illuminate/validation (^12.0)
• Bump development tooling: Orchestra Testbench ^10, Pest ^3, PHPStan ^2
• CI now tests PHP 8.2, 8.3, and 8.4
• Autoload the rule() helper via Composer's files autoload so it is available without a manual require
• in(), notIn(), and contains() now build rules through Laravel's fluent Illuminate\Validation\Rule helpers (values are quoted, e.g. in:"foo","bar")
• Explicit nullable parameter types for PHP 8.4 compatibility (e.g. ?string $range = null instead of implicitly nullable string $range = null)

Added

• anyOf(array $rules)
• doesntContain(string ...$values)
• encoding(string $encoding)
• inArrayKeys(string ...$keys)
• prohibitedIfAccepted(string ...$fields)
• prohibitedIfDeclined(string ...$fields)
• Optional custom confirmation field: confirmed(?string $field = null)
• Strict mode for numeric rules: integer(bool $strict = false), numeric(bool $strict = false)
• URL protocol restriction: url(string ...$protocols)
• UUID version restriction: uuid(string|int|null $version = null)
• UnitEnum support for in() and notIn()

Fixed

• alphaNumeric() now emits the correct Laravel rule string alpha_num (was incorrectly alpha_numeric)
• Rule::make() no longer passes an unused $field argument into the Rule constructor (which could error under PHP 8+)
• README password example updated to use Password::min(...)->letters()->numbers() instead of invalid named arguments

Breaking changes

Change	Migration
Laravel 11 (and earlier) dropped	Upgrade the application to Laravel 12, then install this version
PHP < 8.2 dropped	Run on PHP 8.2 or higher
illuminate/container no longer required directly	No action for normal Laravel apps; illuminate/validation is required instead
alphaNumeric() rule string corrected to alpha_num	Update any assertions or custom code that expected alpha_numeric
in() / notIn() / contains() string form now quotes values	Update assertions that expected unquoted forms like in:foo,bar to in:"foo","bar"
Rule::make(?string $field) no longer forwards $field to the constructor	If you subclassed Rule and relied on a constructor $field argument, stop depending on it (the argument remains accepted for call-site compatibility but is ignored)

Optional method parameters such as confirmed(), integer(), numeric(), url(), and uuid() remain backwards compatible when called with no arguments.