UserAuditable

Add this trait to an Eloquent model to automatically record who created, updated, and deleted each row — stamping the authenticated user's id into created_by, updated_by, and deleted_by columns. You never set these fields by hand.

Usage

Add the audit columns to your table:

$table->foreignId('created_by')->nullable()->constrained('users');
$table->foreignId('updated_by')->nullable()->constrained('users');
$table->foreignId('deleted_by')->nullable()->constrained('users');

Then use the trait on the model:

use Redot\Traits\UserAuditable;

class Post extends Model
{
    use SoftDeletes, UserAuditable;
}

With that in place the columns fill themselves:

// Authenticated as user #5
$post = Post::create(['title' => 'Hello World']);
$post->created_by; // 5

$post->update(['status' => 'published']);
$post->updated_by; // 5

$post->delete();   // soft delete
$post->deleted_by; // 5

What the trait gives you

• Automatic stamping — sets created_by on create, updated_by on update, and deleted_by on delete, using the current authenticated user. A column is only stamped when it exists on the table and a user is authenticated.

• createdBy / updatedBy / deletedBy relationships — load the responsible users:

  $post->load(['createdBy', 'updatedBy', 'deletedBy']);
  $post->createdBy?->name;

• Manual override — set a stamp yourself before saving and the trait won't overwrite it:

  $post->created_by = 99; // wins
  $post->save();

Options

• Guard — stamping uses your app's default auth guard. Override getUserAuditableGuard() on the model to audit against a different guard (which also determines the related user model for the relationships).

Notes

• No user, no stamp. Outside an authenticated request (console, queued jobs, seeders), the columns stay null unless you set them yourself.
• updated_by / deleted_by are opt-in by schema — their stamping is skipped silently if the column isn't present. Make sure the column exists and is loaded on the instance.
• deleted_by is meaningful with soft deletes — a hard delete leaves no row to read the value back from, so combine it with SoftDeletes.

Related

• Taggable — commonly used on the same models.
• Datatables — "Created By" / "Updated By" columns pair naturally with the audit fields.