NovaField Json

Structured data in a JSON column for Laravel Nova — compose ordinary Nova fields into one column, or hand the whole column to the user as a tree, key/value, raw or repeatable-row editor.

📖 Read the documentation →

Both fields end to end, every storage option, the full method tables, seven recipes, nine troubleshooting entries and the 2.0 upgrade path.

[!CAUTION] Upgrading from 1.x? Read UPGRADING.md first. NovaFieldJson is now Json, saveHistory() is gone, and three fixes change what gets written to your columns — Boolean now stores true instead of "1", groups merge instead of wiping, and uncast columns stop being corrupted. None of it is shimmed.

[!IMPORTANT] A ⭐ costs you nothing and helps other developers find this package. Sponsoring keeps it compatible with every new Nova release.

What it does

Nova already addresses into a JSON column: give the model an array cast and Text::make('Type', 'meta->type') reads and writes it. If your shape is fixed and small, use that — two fields, no package. This exists for the cases it does not cover:

• A group you can move, hide or make readonly as a unit — ->hideFromIndex() once instead of on nine fields, and no chance of the ninth being forgotten.
• Keys the user creates. Nova's KeyValue stores every value as a string and renders nothing at all for a value that is an object or an array. If your JSON nests, that field cannot show it.
• Rows in a JSON column. Nova's Repeater owns the whole column, so it cannot share one with other keys, and it has no minimum or maximum.
• Merging, defaults, pruning and encryption, on a column with or without a cast, instead of writing that by hand.
• Two fields in one package. Json composes fields you already use and ships no assets; JsonEditor is a real field with four editor modes and repeatable rows.

The trade: Json is not a Nova Field but a composer — it rewrites each child's attribute, hijacks its fill callback and dissolves into the parent field list, so Nova renders the children and a handful of APIs that demand a Field will not accept a group. JsonEditor is a real field, and costs you an 83 KB (gzipped) asset bundle in return.

Requirements

• PHP 8.2+
• Laravel 11, 12 or 13
• Laravel Nova 5 — a paid package; you need your own licence

Installation

composer require gabrielesbaiz/nova-field-json

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=nova-field-json-lang

The service provider is auto-discovered and registers the JsonEditor assets. There is no config file and nothing to publish to get started; the translations step is optional. Json ships no assets at all — if you only use the composer, nothing is loaded into Nova's bundle.

Full installation guide →

Documentation

Testing

composer test      # pest — 94 tests
composer analyse   # phpstan level 6
composer format    # pint
npm run test       # vitest — 78 tests
npm run prod       # rebuild dist/

The PHP suite covers each 1.x defect as a named regression: uncast column corruption, the action-loop clearing flag, the Fluent cast probe, and child fields being denied their own fill pipeline. The JS suite covers the two contracts most likely to break silently on a Nova upgrade — the fill() payload shape and the nested validation key.

CI runs the PHP matrix (PHP 8.2–8.4 × Laravel 11–13 × lowest/stable), PHPStan, Pint, and an assets job that fails if dist/ is out of date.

Contributing

Thank you for considering contributing. The guide is in CONTRIBUTING.md. Nova is a paid package, so CI needs NOVA_USERNAME and NOVA_LICENSE_KEY secrets and cannot run on pull requests from forks — the guide explains what to run locally instead.

Security vulnerabilities

Values are never interpolated into SQL, each child field runs its own fill pipeline, malformed JSON is a validation error rather than a 500, and the editor renders values as text with no v-html anywhere. What this package does not do is authorise anything — the security page has the full list of properties.

Please review our security policy for reporting a vulnerability. Please do not open a public issue.

Credits

Written and maintained by Gabriele Sbaiz, with thanks to everyone who has contributed.

Support this package

I maintain this on evenings and weekends, alongside a full-time job writing insurance software. Keeping it green across new Nova majors is the unglamorous part, and it is what keeps this installable in your composer.json next year too.

If it is useful to you:

• ⭐ Star the repo. Free, thirty seconds, and it is the first signal other developers look at.
• ❤️ Become a sponsor. From $5 a month. Company tiers get your logo right here in this README.
• 🐛 Open a good issue. A clear reproduction is worth more than you think.
• 🗣️ Tell another Laravel developer. Word of mouth is how packages survive.

Disclaimer

This package is provided as is. It writes to your database columns, and 2.0 deliberately changes what some of those writes contain — reading UPGRADING.md and backing up affected columns before deploying is the deploying application's responsibility, not this package's.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.md. The MIT licence's warranty disclaimer and limitation of liability apply in full, alongside the section above.