Introduction

bradietilley/laravel-data is a small, opinionated Data Transfer Object library.

A Data object is a plain PHP class with a typed constructor. This package adds reflection-driven hydration (build an instance from an array, model, another DTO, stdClass or JSON) and serialization (toArray()), plus a handful of attributes for the cases that need more than a straight property copy.

Design goals

• Lightweight. No heavy runtime, no config to publish, no service provider. The core is a single abstract Data class plus a reflection cache.
• Framework-agnostic core. Data::from() / toArray() work with zero Laravel installed. Laravel features (Eloquent model hydration, Collection results, Carbon casting, paginator wrapping) light up automatically when the relevant packages are present — see Framework-agnostic usage.
• Typed constructors as the source of truth. Your DTO is just its constructor signature. Named + typed arguments give you IDE autocomplete and static analysis for free; the library fills them from whatever input you hand it.

What it is not

• It is not a validation library. Hydration trusts its input; validate before or after as you see fit.
• It does not export TypeScript. That concern lives in laravel-suite — this package focuses on the PHP DTO runtime and PHP code generation.

When to use it

Reach for a Data object whenever you want a typed, self-describing payload: controller input/output, service boundaries, queue job payloads, API responses, or anywhere an untyped array would otherwise leak through your app.