---
url: /laravel-api-generator/guide/evolving.md
---
# Evolving Entities

Generators are great on day 1 and useless on day 30 when regenerating wipes your manual changes. Here, regenerating leaves the files you edited alone, and `--add-fields` patches the entities you want to extend.

## Add fields to an existing entity

```bash
php artisan make:fullapi Post --add-fields="excerpt:text,status:enum(draft,published)"
php artisan migrate
```

What happens:

* An **incremental** `Schema::table()` migration is created (with a proper `down()`)
* The fillable columns (`$fillable` or `#[Fillable]`), the casts (`casts()`, or `$casts` in a model written by 3.x) and the PHPDoc block of the existing model are **patched in place**
* Validation rules go into both requests (with `sometimes` in the update one), factory values and resource fields where they belong
* The enum class is generated when needed
* Fields that already exist are skipped; **your custom methods are never touched**

The DTO (constructor promotion) and the generated tests are left alone and reported as manual follow-ups.

## Your edits survive regeneration

The generator records what it writes in `.api-generator/manifest.json`. Commit that file. On the next run, any generated file you edited by hand is left as it is, and the report names it:

```
  kept      app/Models/Post.php
  ! app/Models/Post.php was edited since it was generated, so it was kept. Use --force to overwrite it.
```

Files you never touched are refreshed as usual. Add `--force` to overwrite the edited ones too, or preview the whole run first with `--dry-run`. Entities generated before 3.11 are regenerated as before on their next run, then tracked.

## Regenerate specific files

Changed your mind about a single artifact? `--only=` rewrites just the listed generators and leaves the migration, route and seeder registration untouched. The manifest also keeps the definition each entity was generated from, so there is nothing to retype:

```bash
php artisan make:fullapi Post --only=Resource
php artisan make:fullapi Post --only=FeatureTest,UnitTest
```

Relations, enum values, foreign keys, unique and nullable columns and the generation options come back as they were, and so do the fields added with `--add-fields`. Their columns stay in their own migration.

An entity generated before 4.1 has no recorded definition yet, so the command asks for its fields. Pass them once, or generate the entity again from its schema file, database or diagram, and the definition is recorded from then on:

```bash
php artisan make:fullapi Post --fields="title:string,content:text" --only=Resource
```

Available types: `Model`, `Controller`, `Service`, `DTO`, `Request`, `Resource`, `Migration`, `Factory`, `Seeder`, `Policy`, `FeatureTest`, `UnitTest`.

## Delete cleanly

```bash
php artisan delete:fullapi Post
```

Removes every generated file, unregisters the seeder from `DatabaseSeeder.php`, and strips the entity's routes from `routes/api.php` and `routes/web.php`. Migrations added with `--add-fields` go too, since the manifest knows them. Add `--dry-run` to see the list first; the confirmation also names any file you edited by hand. Enums and pivot migrations stay, because other entities may use them.

## Repair orphan routes

If a route file still references a deleted controller (the classic `route:list` ReflectionException), purge orphan lines:

::: code-group

```bash [Preview]
php artisan api-generator:clean-routes --dry-run
```

```bash [Apply]
php artisan api-generator:clean-routes
```

:::

The [VS Code extension](/guide/extension/quick-actions#orphan-route-repair) offers this fix when its route list fails on an orphan controller.