Laravel Pipeline

The pipeline pattern, is not new, it is a software design pattern that provides the ability to build and execute a sequence of operations. In its simplest form a pipeline can be looked at like a foreach loop, looping over each pipe and invoking each one in turn.

You'll have used the pattern even if you were not aware - Laravel's middleware handling uses a pipeline approach. Each middleware is a pipe, and the request is passed through each one as the transport.

We can use this same approach to simplify complex logic within our controllers, jobs, commands. In particular, this approach makes your code highly readable in team-based environments, other developers are able to very quickly see everything that should happen within the pipeline.

This pipeline approach, when combined with a couple of other Laravel-centric safeguards - like stopping the use of Events - has allowed me to help a number of teams simplify their code but more importantly make it 100x more readable and understandable to new hires.

-- Sam Jones (@slashequip)