Building a JSON API

Run php artisan install:api to create routes/api.php. Routes in that file start with /api, so Route::get('/lessons', ...) answers at /api/lessons.

<?php
// routes/api.php
use App\Http\Controllers\Api\LessonController;

Route::get('/lessons', [LessonController::class, 'index']);
Route::post('/lessons', [LessonController::class, 'store']);

Returning and receiving JSON

• Return a model or a collection from a controller and Laravel sends it as JSON.
• $request->validate([...]) checks the input. If it fails, an API client gets status 422 with the errors.
• response()->json($data, 201) sets the status code: 201 means “created”.

<?php
public function store(Request $request)
{
    $data = $request->validate([
        'title' => ['required', 'string', 'max:100'],
        'summary' => ['required', 'string'],
    ]);

    $lesson = Lesson::create($data);

    return response()->json($lesson, 201);
}

Test your API with a tool like Postman or Thunder Client, or call it from the Flutter lesson “Loading Data from an API”.