Categories

Description

Categories is Laravel Enso's reusable hierarchical category management package.

It provides the backend flow for storing, editing, listing, reordering, importing, and decorating nested categories, together with form and table builders that plug directly into the Enso admin UI. The package also supports optional category images, featured categories, select-friendly labels, and tree-shaped API payloads for frontend consumers.

Installation

This package comes pre-installed in Laravel Enso distributions that need category administration.

For standalone package installation inside an Enso-based application:

composer require laravel-enso/categories

The package auto-registers its service provider, loads its routes and migrations, and merges the enso.categories configuration namespace.

Run the migrations after installation:

php artisan migrate

If you want to publish the package config or its factory stubs:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=categories-config
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=categories-factory

Features

• Stores categories in a self-referencing tree through parent_id.
• Keeps siblings ordered automatically through order_index and the global Ordered scope.
• Exposes full CRUD endpoints for category administration.
• Supports drag-and-drop style reorder and parent reassignment through the move() workflow.
• Builds frontend-ready form payloads through the Enso forms builder.
• Builds table metadata and data endpoints through the Enso tables builder.
• Returns nested category trees with image metadata for UI consumers.
• Generates select-compatible labels such as Parent > Child.
• Supports optional category images through Enso files integration.
• Restricts image uploads to top-level categories only.
• Supports featured categories through the is_featured flag and featured() scope.
• Includes import and validation classes for category dataset ingestion.
• Provides helper methods for parent trees, subtree flattening, depth, and level calculations.

::: warning Note Only top-level categories can have images attached. Upload validation blocks image uploads for nested categories.

The maximum nesting depth is controlled through CATEGORIES_MAX_NESTING_LEVEL. :::

Usage

Basic model usage

Create a top-level category:

use LaravelEnso\Categories\Models\Category;

$category = Category::create([
    'name' => 'Solar Panels',
    'is_featured' => true,
]);

Create a child category:

$subcategory = Category::create([
    'name' => 'Monocrystalline',
    'parent_id' => $category->id,
    'is_featured' => false,
    'order_index' => Category::nextIndex($category->id),
]);

Move a category to a different parent and position:

$subcategory->move(orderIndex: 1, parentId: null);

Read the nested tree:

$tree = Category::tree();

Inspect hierarchy helpers:

$level = $subcategory->level();
$depth = $category->depth();
$parentTree = $subcategory->parentTree();
$flattenedIds = $category->flattenCurrentAndBelowIds();

Select labels

Use the label resource when a dropdown needs the full breadcrumb:

$options = Category::with('recursiveParent')
    ->get()
    ->map
    ->label();

Frontend integration

The package ships the backend routes and payload builders used by the Enso categories administration UI.

API

HTTP routes

• GET api/administration/categories
• GET api/administration/categories/create
• GET api/administration/categories/{category}/edit
• GET api/administration/categories/options
• POST api/administration/categories
• GET api/administration/categories/initTable
• GET api/administration/categories/tableData
• POST api/administration/categories/{category}/upload
• PATCH api/administration/categories/{category}/move
• PATCH api/administration/categories/{category}
• DELETE api/administration/categories/{category}
• DELETE api/administration/categories/image/{category}

Depends On

Required Enso packages:

• laravel-enso/core ↗
• laravel-enso/data-import ↗
• laravel-enso/dynamic-methods ↗
• laravel-enso/files ↗
• laravel-enso/forms ↗
• laravel-enso/helpers ↗
• laravel-enso/migrator ↗
• laravel-enso/permissions ↗
• laravel-enso/products ↗
• laravel-enso/rememberable ↗
• laravel-enso/select ↗
• laravel-enso/tables ↗

Companion frontend package:

• @enso-ui/categories ↗

Contributions

are welcome. Pull requests are great, but issues are good too.

Thank you to all the people who already contributed to Enso!