// the find
nunomaduro/essentials
Just better defaults for your Laravel projects.
A Laravel package by Nuno Maduro (creator of Pest, Collision, etc.) that flips on a set of stricter, safer defaults: strict models, immutable dates, blocked lazy loading, safe console commands in production, and a few testing helpers. It's a one-line install for teams who want the discipline without the boilerplate of setting it all up themselves.
Strict models by default is the right call — catching missing attribute access and lazy loading at dev time instead of silently returning null in production is genuinely valuable. Immutable CarbonImmutable dates address a real source of subtle bugs in Laravel apps. ProhibitDestructiveCommands is a meaningful production safety net that surprisingly few projects set up manually. The configurable-class architecture is clean — each feature is a single-responsibility class, easy to audit or override.
Auto-eager loading via $with can mask query design problems rather than fix them; it's easy to accidentally pull in large relationship trees globally without noticing. The Unguard feature (disabling mass assignment protection globally) is a footgun that shouldn't be in a 'better defaults' package at all — even as opt-in, it normalizes a practice that's caused real CVEs. The roadmap is vague and the package is thin enough that it could easily be superseded by a single config PR to the Laravel skeleton itself. No guidance on retrofitting existing projects safely, despite the README warning against it.