Make your data talk to everything

For SPAs and mobile apps, Laravel Sanctum is the sweet spot because it issues lightweight API tokens that are simple to validate and revoke, avoiding the complexity of full OAuth flows like Passport. It works seamlessly with CSRF protection for browser apps and stateless tokens for mobile, giving you flexibility without overengineering authentication. Always pair it with HTTPS and short token expiration to keep things secure.

Optimize by treating your API as stateless: use Redis for response and query caching to avoid recomputing expensive operations, implement pagination and eager loading to cut database hits, and add rate limiting to prevent abuse. Run Octane for persistent workers that handle more requests per second, and offload heavy tasks to queues so the API stays responsive even under load. Monitor with Laravel Telescope or New Relic to spot bottlenecks early.

To expose webhooks, create dedicated routes with signature verification (using HMAC or Laravel’s built‑in signing) and process them asynchronously via queues to avoid blocking. For consuming third‑party APIs like Stripe/Shopify, use Guzzle HTTP client wrapped in reusable services with retry logic (exponential backoff) and circuit breakers to handle failures gracefully. Store secrets securely in .env and use Laravel’s encryption helpers for any sensitive payloads.

Write contract tests first that hit your public endpoints with real request/response shapes, ensuring existing clients won’t break on deploys. Then add feature tests using Laravel’s testing suite (acting as API client) to cover auth, validation, and business flows, running them in CI/CD every commit. Mock external dependencies and aim for 80%+ coverage on critical paths to build confidence.

Design multi‑tenant APIs by resolving the tenant early (via subdomain/header/token claim) and applying global query scopes or middleware that automatically filters data to that tenant’s scope. Use separate rate limiters per tenant (throttle middleware with tenant key) and consider database sharding or read replicas for isolation at scale. This keeps data secure and performance consistent without complex custom code.

Design multi‑tenant APIs by resolving the tenant early (via subdomain/header/token claim) and applying global query scopes or middleware that automatically filters data to that tenant’s scope. Use separate rate limiters per tenant (throttle middleware with tenant key) and consider database sharding or read replicas for isolation at scale. This keeps data secure and performance consistent without complex custom code.