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Viktor Le
Viktor Le

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Laravel Policies and Gates, when to use

I have an use case like this - "User has permission to export Transaction from Admin Dashboard, because he has Admin Role". For this use case, I ask myself, "What shoud I use Policy or Gate in Laravel to implement it?". Boomb, I think Gate is fast and simple to implement it. However keep asking myself, When should I use Policy, any context to have a strong decision tree here? Searching in Official docs and over the Internet, it comes up for me with the summary.

Policies

  1. Best for Resource-Based Authorization: Policies are ideal when you need to authorize actions on a specific model or resource. They are typically used for CRUD operations on models.
  2. Automatic Resolution: Laravel can automatically resolve policies for models if you follow naming conventions and register them in the AuthServiceProvider.
  3. Organized and Scalable: Policies provide a structured way to organize authorization logic, especially when dealing with multiple actions on a model.

Gates

  1. Best for General Authorization: Gates are more suited for general authorization that is not tied to a specific model. They are often used for actions that apply to the entire application or multiple models.
  2. Simple and Flexible: Gates are simple to define and can be used for quick checks that don't require the structure of a policy.

Recommendation for Your Scenario

Given your scenario where a user with an Admin role and a specific permission (export) needs to export all transactions, a Gate might be more appropriate. This is because the action of exporting all transactions is not tied to a specific instance of a model but is a general action that applies to the entire application.

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