README

Smart Version-Controlled Schema History & Change Logger for Laravel Projects

🚀 Overview

Laravel SchemaTrack is a developer-focused package that brings schema versioning, change tracking, and visual diffs to Laravel's database structure — turning your migrations and database changes into a clear, documented, and reversible timeline.

Think of it as Git for your database schema, fully integrated into Laravel.

💡 Key Features

• 🧠 Auto Snapshot: Automatically takes a snapshot of your entire database schema after each migrate operation
• 🧾 Schema Diff Viewer: Shows visual differences between schema versions
• 📚 Changelog Generator: Generates Markdown or JSON changelog with human-readable schema changes
• 🌐 Multi-Environment Compare: Compare schema state between environments
• 📦 Custom Artisan Commands: Complete CLI interface for schema management
• 🛠️ Schema Explorer Dashboard: Web UI for browsing schema versions (Optional)
• 🔐 Safe by Design: Never alters your schema, only reads metadata

📦 Installation

composer require mohamedhekal/laravel-schema-track

Publish the configuration file:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="MohamedHekal\LaravelSchemaTrack\SchemaTrackServiceProvider"

🧰 Usage

Basic Commands

# Take a manual snapshot
php artisan schema:track

# View differences between snapshots
php artisan schema:diff --from=2024_07_01 --to=latest

# Compare with another environment
php artisan schema:compare --env=staging

# Generate changelog
php artisan schema:changelog --format=markdown --output=CHANGELOG.md

# List all snapshots
php artisan schema:list

Auto-Snapshot on Migrations

The package automatically takes snapshots after each migration. You can disable this in the config:

// config/schema-track.php
'auto_snapshot' => true,

🧪 Use Case Examples

📁 Directory Structure

storage/schema-track/
├── 2024_07_01_123000_initial_snapshot.json
├── 2024_07_10_093000_add_users_table.json
├── ...

📜 Sample Output

Changelog (Markdown)

## 🗂 Schema Changes (2024-07-26)

### Modified Table: `users`
- Added Column: `is_verified` → boolean, default: false
- Changed Column: `email` → now unique

### New Table: `user_profiles`
- `id`, `user_id`, `bio`, `avatar`, timestamps

Diff Output

$ php artisan schema:diff --from=2024_07_01 --to=latest

📊 Schema Diff Report
====================

🆕 New Tables:
  - user_profiles

📝 Modified Tables:
  - users:
    + Added: is_verified (boolean, default: false)
    + Changed: email (now unique)

⚙️ Configuration

// config/schema-track.php

return [
    'storage_path' => storage_path('schema-track'),
    'auto_snapshot' => true,
    'snapshot_prefix' => 'schema_snapshot',
    'supported_databases' => ['mysql', 'pgsql', 'sqlite'],
    'exclude_tables' => ['migrations', 'failed_jobs'],
    'changelog_formats' => ['markdown', 'json'],
];

🧠 How It's Better Than Migrations Alone

🔮 Roadmap

• ✅ Auto-generate test cases for schema constraints
• ✅ Slack/Discord notifications on critical changes
• ✅ Integration with Laravel Nova or Filament dashboard
• ✅ Detect risky changes (dropping indexed columns, foreign keys)

🧪 Testing

# Run all tests
composer test

# Run tests with coverage
composer test-coverage

# Run static analysis
composer analyse

# Format code
composer format

# Check code style
composer format-check

Using Makefile

# Setup development environment
make setup

# Run all CI checks
make ci

# Show available commands
make help

Using Docker for Testing

# Start test databases
docker-compose up -d

# Run tests
composer test

📄 License

The MIT License (MIT). Please see License File for more information.

🤝 Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for details.

🛠️ Development

Prerequisites

• PHP 8.1+
• Composer
• Laravel 10+ or 11+

Setup

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/mohamedhekal/laravel-schema-track.git
cd laravel-schema-track

# Install dependencies
composer install

# Setup development environment
make setup

Running Tests

# Run all tests
make test

# Run tests with coverage
make test-coverage

# Run static analysis
make analyse

# Format code
make format

Contributing

Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for details on our code of conduct and the process for submitting pull requests.

Prerequisites

• PHP 8.1+
• Composer
• Laravel 10+ or 11+

Setup

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/mohamedhekal/laravel-schema-track.git
cd laravel-schema-track

# Install dependencies
composer install

# Setup development environment
make setup

Running Tests

# Run all tests
make test

# Run tests with coverage
make test-coverage

# Run static analysis
make analyse

# Format code
make format

Contributing

Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for details on our code of conduct and the process for submitting pull requests.

📞 Support

• 📧 Email: mohamedhekal201414@gmail.com
• 🐛 Issues: GitHub Issues
• 📖 Documentation: Wiki