Playa: Cookie-Based Temporary Players for Laravel

Playa gives a Laravel app a lightweight Player model for visitors who aren't logged in. It's aimed at QR-code journeys, event games, voting screens, kiosk flows, and demos where you need to recognize a returning device without putting users through registration.

# Tracking Players via Middleware

添加 playa middleware to any route where you want a player resolved or created:

路线
::
得到
（
'/join/{game}'
,
JoinGameController
：：班级
）

->
中间件
（[
'网络'
,
'playa'
]）

->
姓名
（
'games.join'
（英文）：

On the first visit the middleware creates a player record and sets the cookie. On subsequent requests it resolves the existing player and, by default, refreshes the expiry timestamp.

# Accessing the Current Player

Playa exposes the resolved player through both the request and a facade:

$player
=
$请求
->
player
（）；
使用

CharlieLangridge\Playa\Facades\Playa
;
$player
=

Playa
::
player
（）；
$player
=

Playa
::
findByUuid
($uuid);
Playa
::
忘记
（）；

The model includes name 和 username columns plus a JSON data column for any application-specific details you want to attach — score, answers, position in a flow, and so on.

# Linking to Authenticated Users

A player can be associated with a real user account without forcing the visitor to log in first. This is useful when someone starts a flow anonymously and later authenticates:

$player
->
linkUser
（
授權
（）
->
用户
（））；
$player
->
unlinkUser
（）；

The package supports bigint , uuid , ulid ， 和 string user key types via the user_id_type config option, and auto_link_authenticated_user will attach the current user automatically when set to true 。

# Lifecycle Events

Playa dispatches events at each stage so you can hook into player activity without modifying the middleware:

• PlayerCreated
• PlayerResolved
• PlayerRenewed
• PlayerExpired
• PlayerLinkedToUser

These are handy for analytics, audit trails, or triggering follow-up jobs when a device returns.

# Expiry and Pruning

Players have a configurable lifetime (default 30 days) and can renew on each visit. Expired records aren't deleted automatically — run the artisan command to clean them up, optionally with a grace period:

php

工匠

playa:prune
php

工匠

playa:prune

--hours=24

Playa requires PHP 8.4 and supports Laravel 11, 12, and 13.

To learn more, view the source on GitHub 。