Creating a Reusable Trait for Logging User Activities in Laravel Models

Mr Banana — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 15:08:59 +0000

In real-world Laravel applications, it's common to need to know who made what changes to which record. In this post, we'll build a reusable Trait that automatically logs basic actions (create, update, delete) for any model that uses it.

Step-by-Step Implementation

Create the activity_logs table

php artisan make:migration create_activity_logs_table

In the migration file:

Schema::create('activity_logs', function (Blueprint $table) {
    $table->id();
    $table->string('model_type');
    $table->unsignedBigInteger('model_id');
    $table->string('action');
    $table->unsignedBigInteger('user_id')->nullable();
    $table->json('changes')->nullable();
    $table->timestamps();
});

Then run:

php artisan migrate

Create the ActivityLog model

php artisan make:model ActivityLog

// app/Models/ActivityLog.php
class ActivityLog extends Model
{
    protected $fillable = [
        'model_type', 'model_id', 'action', 'user_id', 'changes'
    ];

    protected $casts = [
        'changes' => 'array',
    ];
}

Create the reusable Trait

mkdir app/Traits
touch app/Traits/LogsActivity.php

// app/Traits/LogsActivity.php
namespace App\Traits;

use App\Models\ActivityLog;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth;

trait LogsActivity
{
    public static function bootLogsActivity()
    {
        static::created(function ($model) {
            $model->logActivity('created');
        });

        static::updated(function ($model) {
            $model->logActivity('updated');
        });

        static::deleted(function ($model) {
            $model->logActivity('deleted');
        });
    }

    public function logActivity($action)
    {
        ActivityLog::create([
            'model_type' => get_class($this),
            'model_id' => $this->id,
            'action' => $action,
            'user_id' => Auth::id(),
            'changes' => $this->getChanges(),
        ]);
    }
}

Use it in any model Just import the Trait:

use App\Traits\LogsActivity;

class Post extends Model
{
    use LogsActivity;
    // ...
}

Final Notes
With this simple trait, you can automatically track basic activities on any model. You can easily extend it to support soft deletes, filtering, custom actions, or role-based access.

DEV Community: Mr Banana

Creating a Reusable Trait for Logging User Activities in Laravel Models