Laravel Credits

A ledger-based Laravel package for managing credit-based systems in your application. Perfect for virtual currencies, reward points, or any credit-based feature.

Table of Contents

• Laravel Credits
  • Table of Contents
  • Features
  • Installation
  • Configuration
    • Database Recommendations
  • Usage
    • Setup Your Model
    • Basic Usage
    • Transfers
    • Transaction History
    • Historical Balance
    • Metadata
    • Querying by Metadata
      • Metadata Key Format
      • Basic Metadata Queries
      • Advanced Metadata Queries
      • Chaining Multiple Metadata Conditions
      • Convenience Methods
      • Performance Optimization
        • When to Optimize
        • MySQL/MariaDB: Virtual Columns with Indexes
        • PostgreSQL: GIN Indexes on JSONB
        • SQLite: Limited Support
        • Choosing What to Index
        • Best Practices
    • Events
  • API Reference
    • Available Methods
    • Query Scopes
    • Deprecated Methods
  • Testing
  • Changelog
  • Contributing
  • Security Vulnerabilities
  • Sponsors
  • Star History
  • License
  • Disclaimer

Features

• 🔄 Credit transactions
• 💸 Credit transfers
• 📢 Events for adding, deducting, and transferring credits
• 💰 Balance tracking with running balance
• 📊 Transaction history
• 🔍 Point-in-time balance lookup
• 📝 Transaction metadata support
• 🔎 Powerful metadata querying with filters and scopes
• ⚡ Efficient queries using running balance and indexes
• 🚀 Performance optimization guide for high-volume applications

Installation

You can install the package via composer:

composer require climactic/laravel-credits

Publish and run the migrations:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag="credits-migrations"
php artisan migrate

Optionally publish the config file:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag="credits-config"

Configuration

return [
    // Allow negative balances
    'allow_negative_balance' => false,

    // Table name for credit transactions (change if you've updated the migration table name)
    'table_name' => 'credits',
];

Database Recommendations

Concurrency & Locking: This package uses row-level locking (SELECT FOR UPDATE) to prevent race conditions during concurrent credit operations. This requires a database engine that supports proper transaction isolation and row-level locking:

• ✅ MySQL/MariaDB: Requires InnoDB engine (default in modern versions)
• ✅ PostgreSQL: Full support for row-level locking
• ⚠️ SQLite: Row-level locking is ignored; concurrent operations may produce incorrect results in high-concurrency scenarios

For production environments with concurrent users, we recommend using MySQL/MariaDB (InnoDB) or PostgreSQL.

Usage

Setup Your Model

Add the HasCredits trait to any model that should handle credits:

use Climactic\Credits\Traits\HasCredits;

class User extends Model
{
    use HasCredits;
}

Basic Usage

// Add credits
$user->creditAdd(100.00, 'Subscription Activated');

// Deduct credits
$user->creditDeduct(50.00, 'Purchase Made');

// Get current balance
$balance = $user->creditBalance();

// Check if user has enough credits
if ($user->hasCredits(30.00)) {
    // Proceed with transaction
}

Transfers

Transfer credits between two models:

$sender->creditTransfer($recipient, 100.00, 'Paying to user for their service');

Transaction History

// Get last 10 transactions
$history = $user->creditHistory();

// Get last 20 transactions in ascending order
$history = $user->creditHistory(20, 'asc');

Historical Balance

Get balance as of a specific date:

$date = new DateTime('2023-01-01');
$balanceAsOf = $user->creditBalanceAt($date);

Metadata

Add additional information to transactions:

$metadata = [
    'order_id' => 123,
    'product' => 'Premium Subscription',
    'user_id' => 456,
    'tags' => ['premium', 'featured']
];

$user->creditAdd(100.00, 'Purchase', $metadata);

Querying by Metadata

The package provides powerful query scopes to filter transactions by metadata with built-in input validation for security.

Metadata Key Format

Metadata keys must follow these rules:

• Use dot notation for nested keys (e.g., 'user.id', not 'user->id')
• Cannot be empty or contain only whitespace
• Cannot contain quotes (" or ')
• Whitespace is automatically trimmed

// ✅ Valid
$user->credits()->whereMetadata('source', 'purchase')->get();
$user->credits()->whereMetadata('user.id', 123)->get();
$user->credits()->whereMetadata('  source  ', 'test')->get(); // Trimmed automatically (not recommended)

// ❌ Invalid - will throw InvalidArgumentException
$user->credits()->whereMetadata('', 'value')->get();              // Empty key
$user->credits()->whereMetadata('data->key', 'value')->get();     // Arrow operator
$user->credits()->whereMetadata('data"key', 'value')->get();      // Contains quotes

Basic Metadata Queries

// Query by simple metadata value
$purchases = $user->credits()
    ->whereMetadata('source', 'purchase')
    ->get();

// Query with comparison operators
$highValue = $user->credits()
    ->whereMetadata('order_value', '>', 100)
    ->get();

// Query by nested metadata (using dot notation)
$specificUser = $user->credits()
    ->whereMetadata('user.id', 123)
    ->get();

// Deeply nested keys (use raw where for very deep nesting)
$results = $user->credits()
    ->where('metadata->data->level1->level2->value', 'found')
    ->get();

Advanced Metadata Queries

// Check if metadata array contains a value
$premium = $user->credits()
    ->whereMetadataContains('tags', 'premium')
    ->get();

// Check if metadata key exists
$withOrderId = $user->credits()
    ->whereMetadataHas('order_id')
    ->get();

// Check if metadata key is null or doesn't exist
$withoutTags = $user->credits()
    ->whereMetadataNull('tags')
    ->get();

// Query by metadata array length
$multipleTags = $user->credits()
    ->whereMetadataLength('tags', '>', 1)
    ->get();

Chaining Multiple Metadata Conditions

$filtered = $user->credits()
    ->whereMetadata('source', 'purchase')
    ->whereMetadata('category', 'electronics')
    ->whereMetadataContains('tags', 'featured')
    ->where('amount', '>', 50)
    ->get();

Convenience Methods

// Get credits filtered by metadata (with limit and ordering)
$purchases = $user->creditsByMetadata('source', 'purchase', limit: 20, order: 'desc');

// With comparison operators
$highValue = $user->creditsByMetadata('order_value', '>=', 100, limit: 10);

// Multiple metadata filters
$filtered = $user->creditHistoryWithMetadata([
    ['key' => 'source', 'value' => 'purchase'],
    ['key' => 'category', 'value' => 'electronics'],
    ['key' => 'tags', 'value' => 'premium', 'method' => 'contains'],
    ['key' => 'order_value', 'operator' => '>', 'value' => 50],
], limit: 25);

// Query with null values (explicitly include 'value' key)
$nullChecks = $user->creditHistoryWithMetadata([
    ['key' => 'refund_id', 'operator' => '=', 'value' => null],  // Check for null
    ['key' => 'status', 'value' => 'pending'],                   // Simple equality
], limit: 10);

Note: When using creditHistoryWithMetadata(), the filter array distinguishes between "two-parameter syntax" and "three-parameter syntax" by checking if the 'value' key exists:

• If 'value' key exists: uses three-parameter form whereMetadata($key, $operator, $value)
• If 'value' key missing: uses two-parameter form whereMetadata($key, $operator) where operator becomes the value

This allows proper handling of null values while maintaining shorthand syntax convenience.

Performance Optimization

For high-volume applications querying metadata frequently, consider adding database indexes. Without indexes, metadata queries perform full table scans. With proper indexes, queries become nearly instant even with millions of records.

When to Optimize

• Small datasets (< 10k transactions): No optimization needed
• Medium datasets (10k - 100k): Consider optimization for frequently queried keys
• Large datasets (> 100k): Highly recommended for any metadata queries

MySQL/MariaDB: Virtual Columns with Indexes

Virtual generated columns extract JSON values into indexed columns for fast queries:

use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\DB;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;

return new class extends Migration
{
    public function up()
    {
        $tableName = config('credits.table_name', 'credits');

        // Add virtual columns for frequently queried metadata keys
        DB::statement("
            ALTER TABLE {$tableName}
            ADD COLUMN metadata_source VARCHAR(255)
            GENERATED ALWAYS AS (JSON_UNQUOTE(JSON_EXTRACT(metadata, '$.source'))) VIRTUAL
        ");

        DB::statement("
            ALTER TABLE {$tableName}
            ADD COLUMN metadata_order_id BIGINT
            GENERATED ALWAYS AS (JSON_EXTRACT(metadata, '$.order_id')) VIRTUAL
        ");

        // Add indexes on virtual columns
        Schema::table($tableName, function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->index('metadata_source');
            $table->index('metadata_order_id');
        });

        // Optional: Composite indexes for common query combinations
        Schema::table($tableName, function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->index(['metadata_source', 'created_at']);
            $table->index(['creditable_id', 'creditable_type', 'metadata_order_id']);
        });
    }

    public function down()
    {
        $tableName = config('credits.table_name', 'credits');

        Schema::table($tableName, function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->dropIndex(['metadata_source', 'created_at']);
            $table->dropIndex(['creditable_id', 'creditable_type', 'metadata_order_id']);
            $table->dropIndex(['metadata_source']);
            $table->dropIndex(['metadata_order_id']);
        });

        DB::statement("ALTER TABLE {$tableName} DROP COLUMN metadata_source");
        DB::statement("ALTER TABLE {$tableName} DROP COLUMN metadata_order_id");
    }
};

Performance impact: Queries go from scanning millions of rows to using index lookups (1000x+ faster).

PostgreSQL: GIN Indexes on JSONB

PostgreSQL's GIN (Generalized Inverted Index) provides efficient querying for all JSON operations:

use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\DB;

return new class extends Migration
{
    public function up()
    {
        $tableName = config('credits.table_name', 'credits');

        // GIN index supports all JSON operators (@>, ?, ?&, ?|, etc.)
        DB::statement("
            CREATE INDEX {$tableName}_metadata_gin_idx
            ON {$tableName} USING GIN (metadata)
        ");

        // Optional: Add specific path indexes for even faster queries
        DB::statement("
            CREATE INDEX {$tableName}_metadata_source_idx
            ON {$tableName} ((metadata->>'source'))
        ");

        DB::statement("
            CREATE INDEX {$tableName}_metadata_order_id_idx
            ON {$tableName} ((metadata->'order_id'))
        ");
    }

    public function down()
    {
        $tableName = config('credits.table_name', 'credits');

        DB::statement("DROP INDEX IF EXISTS {$tableName}_metadata_gin_idx");
        DB::statement("DROP INDEX IF EXISTS {$tableName}_metadata_source_idx");
        DB::statement("DROP INDEX IF EXISTS {$tableName}_metadata_order_id_idx");
    }
};

Note: The GIN index alone enables fast queries for all metadata keys. Path-specific indexes provide marginal additional performance.

SQLite: Limited Support

SQLite has limited JSON indexing capabilities. For SQLite:

• Metadata queries work but will be slower on large datasets
• Consider using a different database for production if metadata querying is critical
• JSON1 extension must be enabled (available in SQLite 3.38+)

Choosing What to Index

Index metadata keys that you query frequently:

// If you often query by source
$user->credits()->whereMetadata('source', 'purchase')->get();
// → Index: metadata_source

// If you filter by order_id
$user->credits()->whereMetadata('order_id', 12345)->get();
// → Index: metadata_order_id

// If you query by tags array
$user->credits()->whereMetadataContains('tags', 'premium')->get();
// → MySQL: Index on virtual column for tags
// → PostgreSQL: GIN index handles this automatically

Best Practices

1. Analyze your queries first: Use EXPLAIN to identify slow queries
2. Index selectively: Only index frequently queried keys (each index adds storage overhead)
3. Use composite indexes: For queries combining metadata with other columns
4. Test with production data: Benchmark before and after indexing
5. Monitor index usage: Remove unused indexes to save storage

Events

Events are fired for each credit transaction, transfer, and balance update.

The events are:

• CreditsAdded
• CreditsDeducted
• CreditsTransferred

API Reference

Available Methods

Method	Description
creditAdd(float $amount, ?string $description = null, array $metadata = [])	Add credits to the model
creditDeduct(float $amount, ?string $description = null, array $metadata = [])	Deduct credits from the model
creditBalance()	Get the current balance
creditTransfer(Model $recipient, float $amount, ?string $description = null, array $metadata = [])	Transfer credits to another model
creditHistory(int $limit = 10, string $order = 'desc')	Get transaction history
hasCredits(float $amount)	Check if model has enough credits
creditBalanceAt(Carbon|DateTimeInterface|int $dateTime)	Get balance at a specific time
credits()	Eloquent relationship to credit transactions
creditsByMetadata(string $key, $operator, $value = null, int $limit = 10, string $order = 'desc')	Get credits filtered by metadata key/value
creditHistoryWithMetadata(array $filters, int $limit = 10, string $order = 'desc')	Get credits filtered by multiple metadata

Query Scopes

These scopes can be used on the credits() relationship:

Scope	Description
whereMetadata(string $key, $operator, $value = null)	Filter by metadata key/value
whereMetadataContains(string $key, $value)	Filter where metadata array contains value
whereMetadataHas(string $key)	Filter where metadata key exists
whereMetadataNull(string $key)	Filter where metadata key is null/doesn't exist
whereMetadataLength(string $key, $operator, $value)	Filter by metadata array length

Deprecated Methods

The following methods are deprecated and will be removed in v2.0. They still work but will trigger deprecation warnings:

Deprecated Method	Use Instead
addCredits()	creditAdd()
deductCredits()	creditDeduct()
getCurrentBalance()	creditBalance()
transferCredits()	creditTransfer()
getTransactionHistory()	creditHistory()
hasEnoughCredits()	hasCredits()
getBalanceAsOf()	creditBalanceAt()
creditTransactions()	credits()

Testing

composer test

Changelog

Please see CHANGELOG for more information on what has changed recently.

Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING for details. You can also join our Discord server to discuss ideas and get help: Discord Invite.

Security Vulnerabilities

Please report security vulnerabilities to [email protected].

Sponsors

GitHub Sponsors: @climactic

To become a title sponsor, please contact [email protected].

Star History

License

The MIT License (MIT). Please see License File for more information.

Disclaimer

This package is not affiliated with Laravel. It's for Laravel but is not by Laravel. Laravel is a trademark of Taylor Otwell.