Laravel Notification Preview

Browse, preview and test-send every notification and mailable in your Laravel app.

Features

• Discovers every notification and mailable in the directories you point it at.
• Builds each one for you; supply your own data with resolvers and named variants.
• Renders the HTML and the plain-text side of a mail, at desktop, tablet and mobile widths.
• Shows every other channel as the JSON payload it would hand its provider.
• Switches locale, edits scalar arguments in place and sends a real test mail to any address.
• Never registers its routes in production; gate it anywhere else with an auth closure.

Installation

composer require pxlrbt/laravel-notification-preview --dev
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=notification-preview-config

The routes register themselves and are always disabled in the production environment. Open the preview at /dev/notifications.

Configuration

// config/notification-preview.php
return [
    'enabled' => env('NOTIFICATION_PREVIEW_ENABLED', true),

    // The kinds of classes to look for. Turn either off to skip it entirely.
    'notifications' => env('NOTIFICATION_PREVIEW_NOTIFICATIONS', true),
    'mailables' => env('NOTIFICATION_PREVIEW_MAILABLES', true),

    'url_prefix' => env('NOTIFICATION_PREVIEW_URL_PREFIX', 'dev/notifications'),
    'middleware' => ['web'],

    // Directories, scanned recursively.
    'paths' => [
        app_path('Notifications'),
        app_path('Mail'),
    ],

    // Class names and namespaces to hide.
    'exclude' => [],

    // null falls back to the directories inside lang_path()
    'locales' => null,

    'test_email' => env('NOTIFICATION_PREVIEW_TEST_EMAIL'),
];

paths takes directories only — namespaces come from Composer's PSR-4 map. Point it at a whole domain directory if you like; abstract classes and anything that is neither a notification nor a mailable are skipped.

Both mailable styles work: envelope()/content() and the older build().

Other channels

Mail is the only channel rendered as a message. Every other one is shown as the JSON payload it would hand its provider. Opt them in:

'channels' => ['mail', 'database', 'smsapi'],

Each notification gains one tab per channel its via() declares. Names match driver strings and channel classes alike, so smsapi also covers an SmsapiChannel::class.

Authorization

By default there is no check: outside production, anybody who can reach the URL can open the preview. Narrow that down with an auth closure:

use pxlrbt\LaravelNotificationPreview\Facades\NotificationPreview;

// Local machines only.
NotificationPreview::auth(fn () => app()->isLocal());

// Or specific people, wherever they are.
NotificationPreview::auth(fn (?Request $request) => $request?->user()?->isAdmin());

Anyone the closure turns down gets a 403.

Hiding classes

exclude takes fully qualified class names and namespaces. A namespace hides everything below it:

'exclude' => [
    App\Notifications\Internal\DebugPing::class,   // one class
    'App\Notifications\Internal',                  // the whole namespace
],

Argument resolution

For each constructor parameter the preview tries these sources, in order, and takes the first one that answers:

Step 4 derives from the type itself:

Supplying your own data

Resolvers

Register these in a service provider, keyed by type:

use pxlrbt\LaravelNotificationPreview\Facades\NotificationPreview;

NotificationPreview::resolve(Order::class, fn () => Order::factory()->make(['id' => 1]));

Untyped parameters cannot be matched by type, so key them by parameter instead. A key registered against a parent class covers every subclass:

NotificationPreview::resolve(
    StateNotification::class.'::$model',
    fn () => Order::factory()->make(),
);

The notifiable that notifications are rendered against works the same way:

NotificationPreview::notifiable(fn () => User::factory()->make(['id' => 1]));

Per-notification configuration

for() returns one object holding everything the viewer shows about a single notification — its label, its group and its variants:

use pxlrbt\LaravelNotificationPreview\Facades\NotificationPreview;
use pxlrbt\LaravelNotificationPreview\Variant;

NotificationPreview::for(OrderCancelled::class)
    ->label('Cancellation')
    ->group('Orders')
    ->variants([
        Variant::make('by-customer', fn () => (new OrderCancelled($order))->setReason('customer')),
        Variant::make('by-us', fn () => (new OrderCancelled($order))->setReason('internal')),
    ]);

Variants are for notifications that need more than constructor arguments — setters, a specific state, a particular payload. A variant returns the finished notification and skips argument resolution entirely.

Labels are derived when you do not set them: from the class name for the notification, from its key for a variant, so by-customer shows as "By Customer". label() and group() both take a string or a closure, and a closure defers a translation until the preview is rendered rather than resolving it while your service provider boots:

NotificationPreview::for(OrderCancelled::class)
    ->label(fn () => __('notifications.order_cancelled'))
    ->group(fn () => __('notifications.groups.orders'));

Variant::make('by-customer', $factory)->label(fn () => __('variants.by_customer'));

Variants can pin their own notifiable:

NotificationPreview::for(OrderShipped::class)->variants([
    Variant::make('to-the-buyer', fn () => new OrderShipped($order))
        ->notifiable(fn () => User::factory()->make(['id' => 2])),
]);

Configuration on the notification itself

To keep the preview data next to the notification, add a static preview() method. Same object, no interface to implement:

use pxlrbt\LaravelNotificationPreview\Preview;
use pxlrbt\LaravelNotificationPreview\Variant;

class OrderShipped extends Notification
{
    public static function preview(Preview $preview): void
    {
        $preview
            ->label('Shipping confirmation')
            ->group('Orders')
            ->variants([
                Variant::make('express', fn () => new self(Order::factory()->express()->make())),
                Variant::make('standard', fn () => new self(Order::factory()->make())),
            ]);
    }
}

Both sources merge, and anything registered through for() wins — per property, and per variant key. A class that declares a label and a service provider that sets only a group end up with both.

Registering and excluding classes

NotificationPreview::register(SomePackage\Notifications\Welcome::class);

// Same matching rules as the `exclude` config key.
NotificationPreview::exclude(InternalDebugNotification::class);
NotificationPreview::exclude('App\Notifications\Internal');

Testing

composer test
composer analyse
composer format