Service Providers
Introduction
Service providers are the central place of all Laravel application bootstrapping. Your own application, as well as all of Laravel's core services, are bootstrapped via service providers.
But, what do we mean by "bootstrapped"? In general, we mean registering things, including registering service container bindings, event listeners, middleware, and even routes. Service providers are the central place to configure your application.
If you open the config/app.php
file included with Laravel, you will see a providers
array. These are all of the service provider classes that will be loaded for your application. By default, a set of Laravel core service providers are listed in this array. These providers bootstrap the core Laravel components, such as the mailer, queue, cache, and others. Many of these providers are "deferred" providers, meaning they will not be loaded on every request, but only when the services they provide are actually needed.
In this overview, you will learn how to write your own service providers and register them with your Laravel application.
[!NOTE]
If you would like to learn more about how Laravel handles requests and works internally, check out our documentation on the Laravel request lifecycle.
Writing Service Providers
All service providers extend the Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider
class. Most service providers contain a register
and a boot
method. Within the register
method, you should only bind things into the service container. You should never attempt to register any event listeners, routes, or any other piece of functionality within the register
method.
The Artisan CLI can generate a new provider via the make:provider
command:
1php artisan make:provider RiakServiceProvider
1php artisan make:provider RiakServiceProvider
The Register Method
As mentioned previously, within the register
method, you should only bind things into the service container. You should never attempt to register any event listeners, routes, or any other piece of functionality within the register
method. Otherwise, you may accidentally use a service that is provided by a service provider which has not loaded yet.
Let's take a look at a basic service provider. Within any of your service provider methods, you always have access to the $app
property which provides access to the service container:
1<?php23namespace App\Providers;45use App\Services\Riak\Connection;6use Illuminate\Contracts\Foundation\Application;7use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;89class RiakServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider10{11 /**12 * Register any application services.13 */14 public function register(): void15 {16 $this->app->singleton(Connection::class, function (Application $app) {17 return new Connection(config('riak'));18 });19 }20}
1<?php23namespace App\Providers;45use App\Services\Riak\Connection;6use Illuminate\Contracts\Foundation\Application;7use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;89class RiakServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider10{11 /**12 * Register any application services.13 */14 public function register(): void15 {16 $this->app->singleton(Connection::class, function (Application $app) {17 return new Connection(config('riak'));18 });19 }20}
This service provider only defines a register
method, and uses that method to define an implementation of App\Services\Riak\Connection
in the service container. If you're not yet familiar with Laravel's service container, check out its documentation.
The bindings
and singletons
Properties
If your service provider registers many simple bindings, you may wish to use the bindings
and singletons
properties instead of manually registering each container binding. When the service provider is loaded by the framework, it will automatically check for these properties and register their bindings:
1<?php23namespace App\Providers;45use App\Contracts\DowntimeNotifier;6use App\Contracts\ServerProvider;7use App\Services\DigitalOceanServerProvider;8use App\Services\PingdomDowntimeNotifier;9use App\Services\ServerToolsProvider;10use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;1112class AppServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider13{14 /**15 * All of the container bindings that should be registered.16 *17 * @var array18 */19 public $bindings = [20 ServerProvider::class => DigitalOceanServerProvider::class,21 ];2223 /**24 * All of the container singletons that should be registered.25 *26 * @var array27 */28 public $singletons = [29 DowntimeNotifier::class => PingdomDowntimeNotifier::class,30 ServerProvider::class => ServerToolsProvider::class,31 ];32}
1<?php23namespace App\Providers;45use App\Contracts\DowntimeNotifier;6use App\Contracts\ServerProvider;7use App\Services\DigitalOceanServerProvider;8use App\Services\PingdomDowntimeNotifier;9use App\Services\ServerToolsProvider;10use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;1112class AppServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider13{14 /**15 * All of the container bindings that should be registered.16 *17 * @var array18 */19 public $bindings = [20 ServerProvider::class => DigitalOceanServerProvider::class,21 ];2223 /**24 * All of the container singletons that should be registered.25 *26 * @var array27 */28 public $singletons = [29 DowntimeNotifier::class => PingdomDowntimeNotifier::class,30 ServerProvider::class => ServerToolsProvider::class,31 ];32}
The Boot Method
So, what if we need to register a view composer within our service provider? This should be done within the boot
method. This method is called after all other service providers have been registered, meaning you have access to all other services that have been registered by the framework:
1<?php23namespace App\Providers;45use Illuminate\Support\Facades\View;6use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;78class ComposerServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider9{10 /**11 * Bootstrap any application services.12 */13 public function boot(): void14 {15 View::composer('view', function () {16 // ...17 });18 }19}
1<?php23namespace App\Providers;45use Illuminate\Support\Facades\View;6use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;78class ComposerServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider9{10 /**11 * Bootstrap any application services.12 */13 public function boot(): void14 {15 View::composer('view', function () {16 // ...17 });18 }19}
Boot Method Dependency Injection
You may type-hint dependencies for your service provider's boot
method. The service container will automatically inject any dependencies you need:
1use Illuminate\Contracts\Routing\ResponseFactory;23/**4 * Bootstrap any application services.5 */6public function boot(ResponseFactory $response): void7{8 $response->macro('serialized', function (mixed $value) {9 // ...10 });11}
1use Illuminate\Contracts\Routing\ResponseFactory;23/**4 * Bootstrap any application services.5 */6public function boot(ResponseFactory $response): void7{8 $response->macro('serialized', function (mixed $value) {9 // ...10 });11}
Registering Providers
All service providers are registered in the config/app.php
configuration file. This file contains a providers
array where you can list the class names of your service providers. By default, a set of Laravel core service providers are registered in this array. The default providers bootstrap the core Laravel components, such as the mailer, queue, cache, and others.
To register your provider, add it to the array:
1'providers' => ServiceProvider::defaultProviders()->merge([2 // Other Service Providers34 App\Providers\ComposerServiceProvider::class,5])->toArray(),
1'providers' => ServiceProvider::defaultProviders()->merge([2 // Other Service Providers34 App\Providers\ComposerServiceProvider::class,5])->toArray(),
Deferred Providers
If your provider is only registering bindings in the service container, you may choose to defer its registration until one of the registered bindings is actually needed. Deferring the loading of such a provider will improve the performance of your application, since it is not loaded from the filesystem on every request.
Laravel compiles and stores a list of all of the services supplied by deferred service providers, along with the name of its service provider class. Then, only when you attempt to resolve one of these services does Laravel load the service provider.
To defer the loading of a provider, implement the \Illuminate\Contracts\Support\DeferrableProvider
interface and define a provides
method. The provides
method should return the service container bindings registered by the provider:
1<?php23namespace App\Providers;45use App\Services\Riak\Connection;6use Illuminate\Contracts\Foundation\Application;7use Illuminate\Contracts\Support\DeferrableProvider;8use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;910class RiakServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider implements DeferrableProvider11{12 /**13 * Register any application services.14 */15 public function register(): void16 {17 $this->app->singleton(Connection::class, function (Application $app) {18 return new Connection($app['config']['riak']);19 });20 }2122 /**23 * Get the services provided by the provider.24 *25 * @return array<int, string>26 */27 public function provides(): array28 {29 return [Connection::class];30 }31}
1<?php23namespace App\Providers;45use App\Services\Riak\Connection;6use Illuminate\Contracts\Foundation\Application;7use Illuminate\Contracts\Support\DeferrableProvider;8use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;910class RiakServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider implements DeferrableProvider11{12 /**13 * Register any application services.14 */15 public function register(): void16 {17 $this->app->singleton(Connection::class, function (Application $app) {18 return new Connection($app['config']['riak']);19 });20 }2122 /**23 * Get the services provided by the provider.24 *25 * @return array<int, string>26 */27 public function provides(): array28 {29 return [Connection::class];30 }31}